The Brock Elliott girls and Great Valley boys elementary basketball teams overcame offensive struggles in the first half and clamped down defensively in crunch time to run away with the Acorn League championship Wednesday at East Union High.
The boys game opened the final-round twin bill, and MVP Semaj Bluford’s double-double effort led Great Valley’s 42-36 win over McParland. Girls MVP Felisa Beard sparked Brock Elliott’s 27-24 comeback victory against Mossdale. Both titlists finished the season undefeated.
Great Valley ended on a 13-2 run, stifling the Knights with its full-court press to hold them scoreless over the final 4:55.
Bluford finished with 18 points, 12 rebounds and five steals, while Lemar Finney contributed 15 points. Kelvin McDaniel added seven points, three assists and three steals. Finau Paea pulled down nine boards to go with two points. Great Valley, coached by Kevin Niendorf, is on a 30-game winning streak going back to last year when it also went unbeaten.
The Bruins missed many point-blank looks at the outset and trailed for much of the first half. McParland jumped out to a 5-0 lead, and GV did not score for the first 7 minutes.
Finney finally ended the dry spell with a fastbreak bucket. Great Valley managed to tie the game at 19-19 by halftime thanks to a seven-point rally in the final two minutes. Bluford capped the burst with a corner 3-pointer and a transition layup set up by McDaniel’s steal and assist.
McParland came out hot to start the second half, getting two unanswered 3-pointers from Mason Hanif (eight points) and Adrian Sena (nine points, four rebounds) to surge ahead, 29-23.
Great Valley’s length and activity ultimately bothered the Knights, however, causing 11 turnovers in the half. The Bruins did not take a lead until Finney buried a baseline jumper to make it 35-34 with 6:40 to go.
Nathan Bettencourt (six points) answered with a layup, but McParland did not score the rest of the way. McDaniel gave Great Valley the lead for good with a baseline jumper of his own.
Jackson Frith (four points) and Colton Madden (two points) finished with eight and nine rebounds for McParland, respectively.
In the girls game, coach Chris Bauer’s Champions of Brock Elliott battled through an 11-minute scoring drought before finding their shooting touch.
Trailing 16-7 at halftime, they scored the first eight points of the second half with six coming from Beard, who ended with nine points and six rebounds.
Mossdale’s Aisha Wiseman led all scorers with 11 points. She also had three assists and four steals. She accounted for the Jaguars’ first seven points of the game and scored four in a row in the second half after Mossdale was held without a point for the first 9:30.
Elliott responded with 12 unanswered points in the next 8 minutes, getting key buckets from Mia Aguirre (four points), Emalina Latu (eight points, seven rebounds, five steals) and Kymoni Beasley (four points, nine rebounds, three assists, three steals).
Breana Wiseman (six points, nine rebounds, two blocks) gave Mossdale some hope in the final minute after making a mid-range jumper from the key and a layup in transition with 13 seconds remaining to close the Jaguars in by three. Zakia Booker (two points, four rebounds, six steals) forced a turnover in the end, but Mossdale was unable to get off one last shot.
