Tide's season ends as buzzer-beater falls short

In a game of two different halves, the Columbia boys' basketball team couldn't overcome a bad first half and saw their season end in the quarterfinal round of the District Three Class AA playoffs Saturday afternoon at Hershey High School.


The Crimson Tide (10-13) couldn't overcome a poor shooting first half and lost to Wyomissing,50-49.

In the first half, the Tide, who was playing its first game in 17 days, shot six of 25 from the field and trailed the Spartans 23-16.

In the second half, the shots started to fall, which gave the Tide a chance to win the game at the buzzer. Dominique Johnson's buzzer-beating jumper from the right elbow fell short, ending a frantic second half for the Tide.

As cold as the Tide was in the first half, they connected on their first four shots from the field to open the second half to cut the Spartan lead to one, 27-26 on a jumper from Tre' Simms (18 points). Wyomissing (13-10) went on a four-point run, leading 31-27 on bucket in the paint by Stuart Kase with about two minutes left in the third quarter.

That's when the Tide got hot again. Olajuwon Michael (12 points) and Nick Nobile each scored four points allowing the Tide to take a 35-32 lead after three quarters.

The Tide extended their lead to five points early in the fourth quarter before Wyomissing scored seven of the game's next nine points to tie the game with five minutes left.

The game went back and forth over the next five minutes before the Spartans went up three points on a foul shot by Duval Singleton with 19.4 seconds left. Simms countered the score with two foul shots to pull the Tide within one with 17 seconds left. But Wyomissing thought they had iced the game on a bucket by Joe Cacchione (14 points) with four seconds left.

At that point, Wyomissing led 50-47 but with two seconds left, Simms was intentionally fouled on a three-pointer. With no one at the line, Simms made two of three and the Tide got the ball back. That's when Johnson's game-winning shot fell short.

The first half was not good for the Tide. They fell behind 9-1 in the first half, recovered to pull within 9-6 after eight minutes on a 2-10 shooting quarter. In the second quarter, the shooting was not much better as the Tide was 4-15 from the field, but only trailed in the game by seven at the half.

Season ends

They played twice this year. Each won a game on the others' home court.

Wednesday, Annville-Cleona and Columbia met for the third time this season in boys' basketball. Unlike the two league games, one held about 10 before on the Tide's home floor, this one had a lot at stake. Win and you advance in the District Three Class AA playoffs. Lose and its the end of the season and high schoo, careers for many.

At Hershey High School, the two evenly matched foes from Section 4 of the Lancaster-Lebanon League, battled in the first round of the District Three playoffs. To the winner went a Saturday meeting against third seeded Hanover.

And it was Annville-Cleona who is moving on following a 42-41win over the Crimson Tide. Columbia's sesason ends with a 7-16 record.

The story of the game was the play of Annville-Cleona guard Trey Blanding. He scored 24 of his team's 42 points, including the first 11. On the other end of the court, Tide senior Brandon Arnold scored all six of his team's first quarter points. After eight minutes, it was Blanding 7, Arnold 6.

A-C continued to led the game in the second quarter. A big basket was a three-pointer from A-C's Tyler Napierala,, which gave the eventual winners a six-point lead. The Tide bounced back, tying the game at 14-14, before falling behind 16-14 at the half.

The Tide took their first lead of the game to open the second half  by Arnold (13 points), but A-C got a couple of three-pointers in the third quarter, including one by Josh Henning to go up as many as five points in the third quarter. A-C still owned a three-point, 28-25 lead entering the final eight minutes.

The Little Dutchmen increased their lead to 32-25 early in the fourth quarter, before the Tide got back into the game outscoring A-C 8-1 over a three minute span to tie the game at 33-33 on a basket by Tre Simms.

Back in the game, the Tide turned the ball over four straight times and A-C took advantage, taking control of the game, leading 40-35 with under two minutes left. Blanding hit 4-of-4 from the foul line to ice the game for A-C. A three-pointer by Nate Wall (11 points) at the buzzer made it a one point game.

Trivia question

Okay Columbia basketball fans -- since Harriton High School in Lower Merion is in the news for some computer spying on students. Anyone recall the year Columbia played Harriton in the state basketball playoffs? What was the year? Where was the game at? Who was the famous baseball player who had a son playing on Harriton?

Girls' season in review

The 2009-10 basketball season at Columbia High School has been over for the Tide girls for more than a week now.

The Tide girls won’t play their final two games against Pequea Valley and Annville-Cleona and will finish 0-20.

So let’s get the unpleasant stuff out of the way first. This will be first time since I think the early 1980s that Columbia won’t participate in the District 3 playoffs, where they haven’t advanced past the first round since Rick Bentley left as coach since I think it was after the 2000 season. It’s also the first time since the early 1980s or even before that the Tide failed to win a game in girls’ basketball.

Now, let’s move on.

The Tide program has dropped from the top of the L-L League since Bentley left as coach to the bottom. In came new coach/old coach Gary Sutton, who guided the Tide boys to a state championship back in 1987. With his arrival came a whole new way of playing basketball for the girls. There were multiple offenses, defenses and other characteristics that the girls hadn’t seen in years. The entire season, learning a new system was a learning experience on both sides. Despite a youthful roster, the Tide girls played hard every game. They just didn’t have the varsity experience yet,

For me, you saw 12 of their 20 games, there were several bright spots.

The first was the play was senior guard Emily Nobile, who I always felt should have played more varsity before this year, relished in the role of a leader and a point guard. She led the Tide in scoring with an average of around 12 points a game. She was deadly from the foul line and one of the best three-point shooters in the section.

The other thing I saw that I liked. For the most part, the Tide was able to adjust on the fly to a new style. There were moments when it looked ugly, but that can be expected.

There’s a good future here. There are four/five starters coming back and a number of players moving up from the junior high, which had a .500 season that will help with numbers and the re-establishment of the junior varsity team,

The other four/five starters back – juniors Becca Kuhn and Jenna Geesey, sophomore Paige Herchelroath and freshmen Jenna Plastino and Ashlyn Phillips all got a taste of varsity life this year and will be better next season.

I thought going in, the Tide’s schedule was brutal – L-S played for a state title last season (Columbia played them twice), Mennonite just missed out on a state tile appearance ans there was the two Catholics – Lancaster Catholic and Lebanon Catholic. Had to that Hempfield and you got a rough schedule for such a young team.

The schedule next season, other than the league schedule will not nearly be that tough, so winning following a good off-season, will be in order for the Tide.

Donation to Hoop Boosters

Mr.and Mrs. John Gamby (center) recently made a generous donation to the Columbia Basketball Booster Club. They are shown here with senior players Brandon Arnold and Emily Nobile.