Drummond Shines, Spring-Ford tops Upper Merion 57-46

There is one player left on Spring-Ford that scored in the PAC-10 championship game last season. That guy is Chucky Drummond. Tonight, Drummond played like a guy who had been there before and carried the Rams to a victory over Upper Merion. He poured in 24 points and went 5-7 from beyond the arc in the win.

He may not be apart of the Rams’ starting lineup, but Drummond has consistently provided for the Rams this season in his role off the bench. Averaging 9.5 points per game, he has been a spark whenever Spring-Ford has needed one.

Drummond was asked after the game about his feelings on his role as the team’s sixth man and voiced his pleasure with the situation. “I’m enjoying playing with the team no matter what position I’m in” and later added that he’s “glad it’s working out...hopefully we can get this title again.”

The senior guard was not the only one who had a big night. Junior forward Austin Hokanson and sophomore forward Noah Baker both were forces on the boards despite being a significantly shorter pairing than Ethan Miller and Matthew Faw. Hokanson also had a big night scoring the basketball, posting a double-double (16 points-10 rebounds) for the Rams.

Rams’ coach Chris Talley commended his guys’ “energy and effort” on the boards tonight and gave Baker credit for his “effort” and called his eight first half rebounds “a huge part of why we went on that run.”

“That run” refers to the electric opening quarter for Spring-Ford where they jumped out to an 18-2 lead and held Upper Merion to 8% shooting from the field. After an ugly start on both sides, Upper Merion took a timeout down 8-2. Out of that timeout, Spring-Ford closed the quarter on a 10-0 run and built a lead that they would hold onto for the rest of the game.

The Vikings would claw their way back into it on the back of Matthew Faw midway through the 4th quarter, but after he fouled out the Rams seized control back and got the win. Faw would finish with 18 points and a very impressive body of work given that he was only in his second game back from injury.

For Upper Merion, they outscored the Rams 44-39 from the beginning of the second quarter to the end of the game, but early turnovers, getting outrebounded, and an overall bad first quarter sunk the Vikings in their first ever PAC playoff game. Forward Ethan Miller fell one point shy of a double-double tonight with 9 points and 14 rebounds to go along with 5 blocks in defeat.

For Spring-Ford, they now will move onto play Perkiomen Valley for the third time this season with everything on the line. On Tuesday night, the rematch of last year’s title game will be as intense as it gets. The Rams are yet to beat the Vikings of “The Valley” this season with a huge home loss earlier this season and close loss at Perkiomen Valley two weeks ago.

For Chucky Drummond and the crew, they’ve now got a few days to prepare for the rematch they have all been waiting for. He and fellow senior guard Ryan Fitzpatrick will get his final chance to go toe to toe with the dynamic senior backcourt of Sean Owens and Justin Jaworski one last time in PAC play for the big prize. It all goes down Tuesday night at Norristown High School.

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