Lower Merion got 16 points and seven rebounds from sophomore guard Israel Ingram, who hit two 3-pointers in both the first and third quarters, which saw Lower Merion get off to hot starts in both halves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Aces led by as many as 21-9 in the second quarter before Springfield closed the first half on a 15-2 run to take a one-point lead into the break. Lower Merion went up as many as eight in the third quarter, but a 3-point play by Altes, a 3-pointer by Valletti and five points from Carr helped Springfield keep it at a five-point gap entering the fourth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe weren\u2019t worried at all,\u201d Altes said. \u201cWe knew if we just did our thing, we\u2019d come back and we started a little slow in the first half, we just knew we had to fix a couple mistakes and we\u2019d be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beating Lower Merion means Springfield went 6-0 against the 6A schools in the Central League, which doesn\u2019t have outright divisions but has the 12 teams playing uneven schedules based on enrollment size. McCormick, who\u2019s in his 32nd year at the Cougars\u2019 helm, couldn\u2019t remember doing that since the league moved to its current format in 2008.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Springfield\u2019s only loss thus far came to Central League leader Penncrest, the Lions winning 51-36 on their home court in December. The rematch is a week away \u2014 Thursday, Jan. 29 \u2014 though both teams have three games to play before then.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t talked [about] record or schedule, not at all,\u201d McCormick said. \u201cIt hasn\u2019t been brought up once. We\u2019re now talking about Marple Newtown. It fits us well, it keeps us focused.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what makes them successful, they don\u2019t get caught up in who\u2019s two weeks from now and what have we accomplished. We haven\u2019t accomplished anything. When we\u2019re done Friday night, we\u2019ll start worrying about Strath Haven and right on down the line. I know it\u2019s a cliche, and with this group it\u2019s really true, they don\u2019t get caught up in it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Quarter
\nSpringfield:\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 9 \u00a0 |\u00a0 15\u00a0 |\u00a0 14\u00a0 |\u00a0 15\u00a0 ||\u00a0 53
\nLower Merion:\u00a0 16\u00a0 | \u00a0 7 \u00a0 |\u00a0 20\u00a0 | \u00a0 9 \u00a0 ||\u00a0 52<\/p>\n
Shooting
\nSpringfield: 19-42 FG (4-15 3PT), 11-18 FT
\nLower Merion: 22-48 FG (8-24 3PT), 0-1 FT<\/p>\n
Scoring
\nSpringfield: Will Carr 20, TJ Valletti 14, Peter Altes 12, Tom Toomey 5, Mason Ellis 2<\/p>\n
Lower Merion: Israel Ingram 16, Kyle Parrish 11, Bereket Darsenie 8, Darius Mitchell 7, Will Yard 6, Nick Dragut 2, Finn Pulsifer 2<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lower Merion got 16 points and seven rebounds from sophomore guard Israel Ingram, who hit two 3-pointers in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[183,185,184,186],"class_list":["post-93219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion-headlines","tag-lower-merion-news","tag-lower-merion-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93219","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=93219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}