Lower Moreland Celebrates Senior Night with a Win

The Lower Moreland boys varsity basketball team is on the cusp of accomplishing something that’s never been done before in school history: winning the Bicentennial League.

Before the Lions can achieve that goal, they had to take care of MaST Charter during Senior Night on Wednesday. Playing in their final home game, Mike Mangan and Demetri Zoubroulis were able to help lead their team to a 52-37 win to keep their chances of a league title alive at 11-1 (14-6 overall).

On paper, last night’s game seemed like the Lions would roll. MaST Charter came in with a 4-7 league record and had lost to LM by 12 in its previous matchup. But it came out hard and hung around trailing by four to eight points for most of the game until the fourth quarter.

“We play our man offense as well as anybody,” head coach Seth Baron said. “If we could keep that six-to-eight point cushion, I knew they had to go man. I knew that we could take advantage of that.”

It wasn’t until the final stanza that the Lions were able to pull away. Lower Moreland led by only six after three quarters and ended up winning the game by 15. The lack of offense and cohesive play in the early going was chalked up to the emotion of Senior Night.

“I made it no secret, I’m not a fan of Senior Night,” head coach Seth Baron said. “I love my seniors, but Senior Night just seems to makes things different. A team comes in and wants to play harder. I give MaST credit, they played hard.”

Jake Cohen led all scorers with 16 points. Zoubroulis added 12 in the win.

Mangan and Zoubroulis joined senior cheerleaders Loren Furman, Jessica Altman, Julie Vartanian, Maria Mentzel and Paige Kauffman at center court in a pregame ceremony to celebrate their final home games.

“You can’t replace them,” Baron said of his senior players. “They’re high character kids, they’re fun kids. They play the game well; they play the game the right way. They will be missed.”

Friday marks the final game of the season at Bristol. If Lower Moreland wins, they will at least share the Bicentennial League title with Holy Ghost, which has only lost one league game as well. The made this title run possible.

“We win this we can get a banner. That’s something we’re really working for,” Baron said. “We need to be sharper ... I just want to make sure we’re fine tuning.”

MaST Charter (9-10, 4-7) 4 7 11 15 - 37
Lower Moreland (14-6, 11-1) 11 4 13 24 - 52