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Latest win over GAR gives 1st-half champs a tie for 2nd-half title. Meyers is a win from overall Div. III title.
Meyers’ Rasheed Moore chases after GAR’s Darrell Crawford. Moore scored 10 points as the Mohawks defeated the Grenadiers .
Fred adams/for the times leader
WILKES-BARRE – Beating an archrival twice in a season is special.
Meyers’ sweep of GAR, completed with a 50-36 victory before a capacity home crowd, carried extra weight Friday night.
Not only did the Mohawks win, they clinched at least a tie for the Wyoming Valley Conference Division III boys basketball second-half title. Along with winning the first-half season, all Meyers (6-0 Div. III, 20-1 overall) needs to do now is defeat Wyoming Seminary (4-2 Div. IV, 8-11) on Tuesday to win the second-half and overall divisional championships.
“It’s our last home game here. We’ve been playing here since seventh grade,” said Meyers guard Ross Lavan, one of three seniors in the starting lineup. “GAR is a cross-town rival, and you’re always supposed to beat GAR.”
Not everyone was able to see that.
The Meyers school doors were locked about 45 minutes prior to tip-off and signs were posted alerting latecomers to the sellout. Still, someone tried to kick in the glass on one door and maintenance men were boarding it up after the game.
Meyers finished with three players in double figures – Nahjee Brown (14), Keyton Winder (13) and Rasheed Moore (10) – but it wasn’t until late in the fourth quarter when the Mohawks opened up a double-digit lead for good.
Winder hit a jumper and Brown followed with two free throws, pushing Meyers’ advantage to 45-33 with 2:32 to play. GAR (5-1 Div. III, 15-6) managed to get within nine, but a flurry of late-game 3-point shots missed their mark, allowing Meyers to sweep the Grenadiers for the second time in two WVC seasons.
The misses were part of a rough shooting night for the Grenadiers. They finished 12-of-58 (21 percent) from the floor, including 2-of-16 from beyond the arc. But it was GAR’s inability to score in the paint despite getting the ball inside with consistency that hurt throughout.
“It was not a good shooting night for us at all from the floor, from the foul line,” GAR coach Paul Brown said. “We ran our sets, we got the looks we wanted, but you get the ball close to the rim and it won’t go in.”
Shaliek Powell led GAR with 11 points and Matt Sharpe added nine, but Meyers clamped down on Darrell Crawford with excellent results.
Crawford had been averaging 16.6 points in the absence of scoring threat Mike Polakoski, who has missed the previous five games with a knee injury. The junior guard started out with a promising four-point first quarter, but was held scoreless the rest of the game.
“Ryan (Krawczeniuk) did a good job on him, and we got some good help on the stagger screens,” Meyers coach Pat Toole said. “We kind of bounced him around a couple times like a pinball stepping out knowing Mike Polakoski was out, which was a huge loss because the kid was having a really good year.
“The plays they were running for Mike, they’re now running for Darrell.”
The teams could play again next week if Meyers loses to Seminary and GAR defeats Lake-Lehman on Tuesday. That would force a playoff game for the second-half title. They could also meet in the District 2 Class 2A playoffs since both, along with Hanover Area, have clinched berths.
GAR (36): Crawford 2 0-0 4, Sharpe 3 2-2 9, Powell 4 2-3 11, Francis 2 1-4 5, Skrepenak 1 3-8 5, Ellis 0 2-2 2, Dempsey 0 0-0 0. Totals 12 10-19 36.
MEYERS (50): Brown 4 5-6 14, Krawczeniuk 1 2-2 5, Moore 4 2-4 10, Lavan 3 0-0 6, Winder 6 0-0 13, Walters 1 0-1 2, McGavin 0 0-1 0. Totals 19 9-14 50.
GAR
6
9
10
11
—
36
Meyers
11
10
12
17
—
50
3-Point Field Goals— GAR 2 (Sharpe, Powell); MEY 3 (Brown, Krawczeniuk, Winder)