Germantown Academy had the game plan for stopping Penn Charter's twin towers, but just didn't have the horses to pull it off.
The Quakers' duo of 6-foot, 9-inch, 215-pound senior Steve Goodrich and 6-7, 230 junior Shawn Peterson teamed up for 38 points as the Quakers dropped the host Patriots, 72-67, in each team's Inter-Ac opener on Friday.
With the victory, the Quakers improved to 13-1 overall, and 1-0 in the league, while the Patriots dropped to 8-5 and 0-1.
"I knew we couldn't handle both of those big guys," GA coach Jim Fenerty said. "So we wanted to work in down low to get one, if not two, of them in (foul) trouble."
"The Plan" was working like a charm early on, as Goodrich, who will play at Princeton University next season, picked up his third foul with a little less than three minutes left in the first quarter. He would sit until the start of the third quarter.
The Quakers trumped "the plan" by getting the Patriots' big man, 6-5 senior forward Damon Myers, into foul trouble early, when he was whistled twice in the game's opening three minutes.
"We just aren't deep enough in the frontcourt to afford that," Fenerty said, despite getting nine first-half points from 6-4 senior forward Ricky Welsh.
The Patriots capitalized on Goodrich's foul trouble, as they came back from a first-quarter deficit that ballooned to as much as 10 points to tie the Quakers at 18 as the quarter ended. Patriots' senior guard Larry Leith made history in the second quarter when he sank a jumper from the right wing with 6:21 left to play for his 1,001st point.
Play was stopped and Leith made his way across the court to give the ball to his parents.
"This really feels great," Leith said. "There's only a select few that have ever scored that much here."
Two minutes later, Leith scored his 1,006th point on a three that ignited a Patriots rally.
In a 1:15 stretch in the second quarter, the Patriots rattled off eight straight points to take a 37-28 lead. In that run, Patriots guard Chucky Wise twice picked the pocket of Penn Charter point man Brian McMahon and converted for two layups.
"We haven't played since Dec. 30," Penn Charter coach Brian McMahon, the Quakers' point guard's father, said. "That was the reason we looked so disorganized. Not playing really hurt us."
As explosive as the Patriots' second quarter was, the Quakers' third quarter was even more so. After trailing by 42-32 at the break, Penn Charter grabbed the lead back, at 47-46, with just 3:25 remaining in the period when forward Scott Zalben converted on the back end of a three-point play.
With Goodrich back in the game, the Patriots' attention was divided. Goodrich and Peterson each reeled off six-point runs in the quarter.
Peterson, who totaled a game-high 21 points, exploded for 13 in the final half.
"People forget about him when Steve's in there," coach McMahon said.
