KINGSTON — Wyoming Seminary’s pre-game senior night ceremony didn’t go as envisioned Thursday, with standout guard Jake Koretz walking out to the court on crutches.
A couple senior teammates also participating made up for the loss of the Wyoming Valley Conference’s leading scorer.
Ethan Meuser scored 32 points and Gavin Flanley added 19 more — both season highs — as the Blue Knights held off Lake-Lehman 71-66 in a Wyoming Valley Conference Division 2 boys basketball game.
Seminary (9-1 Div. 2, 11-1) moved closer to clinching the division. Holy Redeemer (8-3 Div. 2, 10-8) took over sole possession of second place with a win at Dallas. Both teams have games Saturday — Seminary at Dallas and Redeemer at Nanticoke Area.
A Seminary win or a Redeemer loss Saturday clinches the division for the Blue Knights. But if the opposite happens, then there’s a problem.
Seminary still has a divisional game with Nanticoke Area to reschedule. The regular-season deadline was Sunday, but District 2 extended it to Tuesday for the WVC and Lackawanna League. Nanticoke Area has games scheduled Sunday and Tuesday with Dallas.
Lehman (7-4 Div. 1, 9-7) was trying to stay in the mix, but fell out of contention.
“Meuser is just a bully down there,” said Lehman coach Adam Dizbon, a former assistant who took over four games ago when Dwayne Kalinay stepped down for personal reasons. “Our gameplan going in was to, one, stick a guy with him all game, and, two, try and front him. Give credit to their guards. They were really, really good getting the entry pass in and getting him the ball.
“But hat’s off to him. He’s a really good player. Again, height killed us.”
The 6-foot-7 Meuser also had 14 rebounds and a couple of blocks. Along with Flanley, who is 6-3 and was the goalkeeper on the district champion soccer team, Seminary dominated inside for a good portion of the game.
“I was thrilled,” Seminary coach Pete Moses said. “We stuck to the gameplan. We preached paint touches, paint touches, paint touches. Flanley had 18 (actually 19) and Meuser had 32. They got a lot of touches, they got to the foul line and that’s what we wanted.
“Not that we don’t trust our guards with the ball. We love our guards, but we know everything has to be inside-outside for us. We have to establish ourselves in the paint.”
Koretz was averaging 24.1 points when he was injured in the second quarter of Wednesday’s 65-45 loss to Redeemer. Moses said the ankle injury will likely keep him sidelined between 10-14 days.
Senior guard Andrew Maddock picked up some of the slack offensively with 15 points. Senior Jackson Amend, starting in Koretz’s place, helped out defensively on Lehman sharpshooter Max Paczewski, who had three 3-pointers in the opening quarter but only one more the rest of the game.
Lehman, which lost to Seminary by 23 on Feb. 13, pulled within three twice in the final minute as Josh Kane scored 15 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter. His final basket cut the deficit to 69-66, but Maddock was solid at the foul line and hit two free throws with 22.9 seconds left for the final points.
Wyoming Seminary 71, Lake-Lehman 66
LAKE-LEHMAN (66) – Josh Kane 8 4-5 22, Max Paczewski 7 2-2 22, Ethan Adams 0 2-2 2, Hayden Klopp 3 0-0 6, Neil Dougherty 3 0-0 8, Cole Morio 1 0-0 3, Corey Bean 1 0-0 3. Totals 23 10-11 66.
WYOMING SEMINARY (71) – Ethan Meuser 11 10-13 32, Gavin Flanley 8 2-5 19, Isaiah Stull 1 0-0 2, Andrew Maddock 3 6-7 15, John Coates 1 0-0 3, Jackson Amend 0 0-0 0. Totals 24 18-25 71.
Lake-Lehman`16`10`18`22 – 66
Wyo. Seminary`19`14`20`18 – 71
Three-point FGs: LL 10 (Kane 2, Paczewski 4, Dougherty 2, Cole, Bean), WS 5 (Maddock 3, Flanley, Coates).
