PERKIOMEN — Seven straight points to start the third quarter cut the North Penn boys basketball’s 21-point halftime deficit down to 14.
But Perkiomen Valley’s Julian Sadler was quick to stamp out any of the Knights’ momentum, the senior guard responding with a personal 6-0 run — his bucket off a steal pushing the Vikings’ advantage to 39-19.
“In that situation, kind of just slow the game down and get a good shot, especially when they have some energy,” Sadler said. “And if we kind of get out of control, they’re going to build off that energy but we just played our style and we got good shots.”
PV continued to cruise from there, Sadler finishing with a game-high 26 points — 17 in the first half — as the Vikings earned their fourth straight victory, topping the Knights 57-37 at the Perkiomen Valley Holiday Shootout Thursday night.
“We did come out a little flat in the third,” Sadler said. “After the timeout we just regrouped, we got everything situated and we just started playing. We came out sleepwalking so we just got everything together after that timeout.”
The Vikings (8-2, 2-1 PAC, 1-1 PAC Liberty) picked up a pair of convincing wins as Shootout host, starting Wednesday by rolling past Wissahickon 67-41.
Sadler, who recorded his 1,000th career point in the win over Boyertown Dec. 19, scored 10 in Thursday’s opening quarter as Perk Valley jumped out to an 18-6 advantage. PV’s defense held the Knights to just six more points over the next eight minutes to take a 33-12 lead into the break.
“I think that is definitely some good wins,” Sadler said. “I think we played very well as a team, we recognized mismatches, attacked mismatches. We played very good team defense and I think going into the new year it’s obviously good that we’re 8-2, we haven’t lost in a little bit but I think January, that’s the most important basketball.”
Perk Valley had an 8-1 start in 2022-2023 before hitting a rough patch in January, losing five of seven. The Vikings won five of its next six to finish the regular season 15-7. After falling in double-overtime to Upper Merion in the PAC semifinals then an upset loss to Upper Darby in the District 1-6A second round, a win over Neshaminy in playbacks clinched PV’s first PIAA berth since 2019.
“Last year we learned a lot cause we dropped a lot of games and it’s just a shame,” Sadler said. “That stayed with us the whole offseason up to now. This whole December we were pretty much on the road and that’s where a lot of our losses were last year.
“So now that we’re home for a lot of January, hopefully we can instead of regress from what we’ve done in this month we want to kind of build on it and just not get comfortable at all cause we haven’t really gotten to the brink of league play.”
Jakob Harken finished with 13 points for the Vikings, who have not lost since falling at Methacton 57-49 in their PAC opener Dec. 15.
Ahmaar Godhania connected on three 3-pointers in scoring a team-best 14 points for North Penn (4-7, 3-3 SOL Colonial), which has lost four straight and six of its last seven.
Perk Valley is home Tuesday against Norristown in PAC Liberty contest while North Penn hosts Neshaminy in an SOL crossover on Friday, Jan. 5.
Four straight points from Harken had the Vikings out to a quick 6-0 lead. A Godhania jumper pulled the Knights to within 8-6 but Sadler knocked down a three then converted a 3-point play with 1:15 left in the first quarter. Sadler then ended an 8-0 personal run with a turnaround jumper for a 16-6 PV advantage.
“Norman Gee’s a great defender, he’s quick, he’s really good at staying in front of me,” Sadler said. “So I just kind of let my teammates get going first and then I kind of let the game come to me and played through the post a lot and my teammates found me and I was able to create from there. So it was a team effort.”
Harken scored off a drive from the right wing to put the Vikings up a dozen at the end of the opening period.
Josh Tagert made it 12 straight PV points before Godhania hit two free throws at 7:01 in the second quarter. Sadler, however, connected on a three with a Tagert basket increasing the Vikings’ lead to 25-8.
A Godhania triple had the Knights down 14 but Perk Valley collected seven of the half’s final eight points – a Harken free throw with 21 seconds left sending the hosts into the half up 33-12.
Gabe Altemus’ basket capped North Penn’s 7-0 run to start the third to get within 33-19 only for Sadler to score the next six.
Perk Valley led 45-23 after three quarters and pushed the margin to as large as 26 at 49-23 after baskets from Sean Wagoner and Harken to start the fourth. North Penn ripped off nine straight to make it 49-32 before Sadler’s 3-point play on a second putback attempt with 3:39 left.
Perkiomen Valley 57, North Penn 37
North Penn 6 6 11 14 – 37
Perkiomen Valley 18 15 12 12 – 57
North Penn: Ahmaar Godhania 1 3 3-4 14; Tre Simpson 2 0 2-4 6; Corey Meade 1 0 2-4 4; Norman Gee 0 1 0-0 3; Lee Hammond 0 1 0-0 3; JC Wood 0 1 0-0 3; Gabe Altemus 1 0 0-0 2; David Onyeanusi 1 0 0-0 2; Totals 6 6 7-12 37.
Perkiomen Valley Julian Sadler 7 2 6-6 26; Jakob Harken 5 0 3-6 13; Josh Tagert 3 0 0-0 6; Sean Wagoner 1 1 1-2 6; Kyle Shawaluk 2 0 0-0 4; Ryan Murphy 1 0 0-0 2; Totals 19 3 10-14 57.
