![\"Conestoga's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/12112025-spt-conbball-4.jpg\")
Conestoga\u2019s Corey Hogan shoots a basket over Lower Merion\u2019s Finn Pulsifer during Thursday\u2019s action. Photo by Tom Silknitter.<\/p>\nTREDYFFRIN \u2014 To win at any level of basketball, a team needs stellar guard play. Thursday night at Conestoga, the host Pioneers received superlative play from point guard Rowan Miller, and off guard Tygee Clark. The pair combined for 33 of the Pioneers\u2019 50 points as \u2019Stoga held off Lower Merion, 50-45, in Central League action.<\/p>\n
Clark led all scorers with 18 points while Miller chipped in with 15 points to go along with six assists. The Pioneers (2-0, 3-1 overall) took a 13-point lead early in the fourth period and then had to withstand an 11-0 Aces\u2019 run to claim the hard-fought victory. The Pioneers went 4:53 without scoring in the fourth period.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel as the point guard that us not scoring for that long was on me,\u201d Miller said. \u201cBut my teammates got us through it and we got the win. We practiced hard yesterday and today against (Lower Merion\u2019s) zone, attacking it and it worked for most of the game until that stretch in the fourth period. But we pulled through.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conestoga broke the game open in the third period after holding a slim 27-25 halftime edge. With the score tied 32-32, the Pioneers scored the next nine points. Miller scored in the lane and then after an Aces\u2019 miss, Miller scored on a run out.<\/p>\n
Clark then took a turnover, one of 15 for Lower Merion on the night, to the basket to score, got fouled and hit the free throw. At the end of three periods the Pioneers held a 41-34 lead.<\/p>\n
Conestoga\u2019s lead grew to 47-34 with 5:02 left in the fourth period. Clark scored in the lane to make it 43-34. The Aces (0-2, 1-3) then missed a three-pointer and Miller hit Logan Straub with a perfect pass for a layup to make it 45-34.<\/p>\n
Conestoga\u2019s Corey Hogan shoots a basket over Lower Merion\u2019s Finn Pulsifer during Thursday\u2019s action. Photo by Tom Silknitter.<\/p>\n
Lower Merion missed their first six shots in the fourth period and Miller hit a medium jumper in the lane to give the Pioneers what looked like a commanding 47-34 lead with 5:02 left to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur guards are the strength of our team,\u201d Pioneers\u2019 coach Sean Forcine said. \u201cI have had Rowan for three years now and he is a leader out there. And Ty, coming over from Cardinal O\u2019Hara, has brought not just his athleticism but his maturity.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has bought into our system and fit right in. And our freshman, Sol (Onwubuari), has done a great job. I trust him with the ball in his hands also. We will go as far as our guards take us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Down by 13 points with just 5:02 left to play, the Aces went on a run to cut the Pioneers lead to 47-45 with 46.5 seconds to play.<\/p>\n
Israel Ingram drained one of his three three-pointers and the Pioneers suddenly started to turn the ball over. When William Yard scored in tight, the \u2019Stoga lead was down to 47-45 with 46.5 seconds to play, forcing a Pioneers\u2019 time out. Conestoga turned the ball over five times in that 11-0 Aces\u2019 run.<\/p>\n
![\"Conestoga's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/12112025-spt-conbball-9.jpg\")
Conestoga\u2019s Logan Straub shoots a basket on Thursday against Lower Merion. Photo by Tom Silknitter.<\/p>\n
The Pioneers came out of the huddle and Miller stepped on the side line, giving the Aces the ball with 33.4 seconds to play. Ingram got a good look but his three-point try rimmed out, and Miller grabbed the rebound with 8.4 seconds to play. Miller was fouled almost immediately and hit one of two free throws for a 48-45 lead with 7.7 seconds to play.<\/p>\n
Lower Merion called time out and set up a three-point look for Kyle Parrish. But the shot did not go down and Clark grabbed the rebound, got fouled and he hit two free throws to make it a hard fought 50-45 win.<\/p>\n
\u201cEver since I transferred into this school, everybody has welcomed me,\u201d Clark said. \u201cI feel like part of the family and tonight we beat a really good team because we all chipped in to get the win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conestoga 50, Lower Merion 45<\/p>\n
LOWER MERION \u2013 Miller 2 0-0 6, Darsenio 3 0\u20130 9, Mitchell 0 0-0 0, Ingram 5 0-2 13, Beck 0 0-0 0, Pulsifer 0 0-0 0, Yard 1 0-0 2, Kodak 2 0-0 4, Smith 1 1-1 3, Parrish 3 2-2 8. Totals 17 3-5 45.<\/p>\n
CONESTOGA \u2013 Onwubuari 1 2-2 5, Clark 5 7-8 18, Hogan 2 1-3 5, Mani 2 0-0 5, Miller 5 5-7 15, Straub 1 0-0 2, D\u2019Emilio 0 0-0 0. Totals 16 15-20 50.<\/p>\n
Lower Merion 13 12 9 11 \u2013 45<\/p>\n
Conestoga 6 21 14 9 \u2013 50<\/p>\n
Three-point goals: Miller 2, Darsenio 3, Ingram 3, Onwubuari, Clark, Mani.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TREDYFFRIN \u2014 To win at any level of basketball, a team needs stellar guard play. Thursday night at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[1557,305,183,185,184,186,725,28,726,1015],"class_list":["post-58767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lower-merion","tag-chester-county","tag-high-school-sports","tag-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion-headlines","tag-lower-merion-news","tag-lower-merion-township","tag-pa-prep-live","tag-pennsylvania","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-mer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58767","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=58767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}