When Bethlehem Christian opened its boys basketball season Friday night at Coventry Christian in Pottstown, just three Panthers scored points.<\/p>\n
But in this case, three was enough.<\/p>\n
Gabe Transue scored 28 points, Myles Harris had 21 and Deion Swift chipped in 16 in a 65-54 win.<\/p>\n
Perhaps no team in local basketball has a more potent threesome, but, of course, it\u2019s a five-person game.<\/p>\n
If coach Matt DeJesus and the Panthers are going to repeat as District 11 1A champions, more players are going to have to score.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have five seniors and they have made great contributions and have helped us build us the culture we\u2019ve tried to build since the program began five years ago,\u201d DeJesus said. \u201cThis is the fifth year for our program and the fourth year participating in the PIAA. This is definitely the best team we\u2019ve had. We lost some great seniors from last year, but we have five seniors who have been through this for four years. We really want these guys to express to the younger guys what we want this program to be so when they pass it off to them they know what to expect. This is our best team. It won\u2019t be our last best team, but it is right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bethlehem Christian has qualified for the state tournament three years in a row, made it to the second round two years in a row and would like to go deeper. The Panthers lost to the City School from Philadelphia in 2022-23, to Linville Christian two seasons ago, and Sankofa from Philadelphia last year.<\/p>\n
To go further that, DeJesus said his Panthers need more from their bench.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also have to pick up our conditioning; we have to pick up our defense, and we need more guys off the bench to give us more minutes,\u201d DeJesus said. \u201cWe have to find a lineup as we go and find the five guys we can line up with. We have multiple guys we can put at the big man spot, and we can also go small. It\u2019s just a matter of finding the right combination.\u201d<\/p>\n
Transue entered the season with 1,421 career points. He was one of the area\u2019s leading scorers last season, averaging 23.9 points per game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a good shot at winning states,\u201d Transue said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a good team here; the best we\u2019ve had. We\u2019ve just got to lock in. I just worked on getting stronger and on my vertical jump. I just tried to get better as an athlete.\u201d<\/p>\n
Transue praised several of his teammates: \u201cMyles is a lethal 3-point shooter, and anytime we call his number, he can knock down a big three, and Deion is a great ballhandler and facilitator. Caleb Brown can do a good job for us down low.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris entered the season with 1,233 points and 176 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
Swift averaged 12.6 points, 2.7 rebounds, and 2.2 assists last year as a sophomore.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can make a deep run this year,\u201d Swift said. \u201cWe had one bad quarter against Sankofa last year, and that cost us. Sankofa made it all the way to the state championship game. So, I think we have a great chance of getting there this year. We have some others besides me, Gabe and Myles who can score, but they like to play their roles and do other things because they know we can score.\u201d<\/p>\n
The players and DeJesus are happy to have a new home at In the Zone in Bath.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur old court up at PIus X in Roseto is no longer available, so our AD, Brian Algeo, did a good job of going out and getting us a new court that is much more conveniently located in Bath,\u201d DeJesus said. \u201cWe\u2019re the only team playing there, and we have bleachers, with the idea of adding more next year. In the Zone has its teams and leagues and special events that are using that court. But we\u2019re the only high school playing there. It\u2019s great to have our own court with shooting guns, a weight room. It\u2019s like our own facility, and we\u2019ve forged a good partnership with In the Zone and Push The Rock. It\u2019s been fun to play there and have our home opener there on Thursday, and we\u2019re excited to see how that facility grows.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team is also playing its most challenging schedule with several EPC teams on the card, along with Executive Education.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeefing up the schedule will help us prepare for what we hope will be a deeper run in states,\u201d DeJesus said. \u201cThere are a lot of good teams in Class A, including a lot of good teams in District 11 like Notre Dame-East Stroudsburg, Lincoln, Nativity, Weatherly \u2026 and we\u2019re going to have to be ready to play them later on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bethlehem Christian at a glance<\/p>\n
Coach: Matt DeJesus (fourth season, 63-22, including 2-0 this season)<\/p>\n
Last year: 26-3. Won ACCAC title with 72-38 win over Valley Forge Baptist. In the District 11 1A tournament, beat Weatherly 86-52, beat Lincoln Leadership 63-48 for the title. In PIAA tournament, beat Bucktail Area 72-43, lost to Sankofa Freedom Academy, 75-66.<\/p>\n
Players to watch: Nick Kasper (Sr.); Myles Harris (Sr.); Gabe Transue (Sr.); Caleb Brown (Sr.); Caleb Primrose (Sr.); KJ Fraser (Jr.); Preston Rex (Jr.); Deion Swift (Jr.); Kaleb Vassol (Fr.); Luis Rodriguez (Fr.)<\/p>\n
Next game: At Notre Dame-East Stroudsburg, 6 p.m. Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Home opener: vs. Quakertown Christian, 7:30 p.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n
Schedule highlights: At Nazareth, Dec. 13; at Dieruff, Dec. 15; vs. Northern Lehigh in the Slatington Rotary Christmas Tournament, Dec. 29; play either Pleasant Valley or Catasauqua, Dec. 30; at Allentown Central Catholic, Jan. 10; at Executive, Jan. 17; at Palisades, Jan. 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Bethlehem Christian opened its boys basketball season Friday night at Coventry Christian in Pottstown, just three Panthers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,29375,305,726,432],"class_list":{"0":"post-55153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-bethlehem","9":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","10":"tag-bethlehem-news","11":"tag-high-school-basketball","12":"tag-high-school-sports","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}