Cardinal O’Hara spoils Show’s debut at Abington Heights

CLARKS SUMMIT — Cardinal O’Hara combined intense man-to-man defense throughout the game with strong rebounding in the second half to ruin J.C. Show’s debut as head coach with a 71-52 victory over Abington Heights in a non-league boys basketball Dec. 1.

Cardinal O’Hara, from the Philadelphia suburb of Springfield in Delaware County, was led by Milak Myatt with 19 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Three other players, including Malik Brown, who grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds, scored in double figures.

The Lions outrebounded the Comets 26-7 in the second half and 39-17 in the game, allowing them to break open a game that went back and forth for the first 10 minutes and reached halftime with Cardinal O’Hara ahead just 31-24.

“We’re going to keep working on our rebounding,” said Show, the school’s all-time leading scorer with 1,950 points. “We’re not a big team, but I thought the kids competed hard and that’s going to be very important for us going forward to try to rebound better.”

Show said the Comets, who went unbeaten all the way to the state quarterfinals last season, cannot panic over their worst regular-season defeat since the 2019-20 season.

“Just understand that this is our first game,” he said. “We need time to keep practicing, keep trying to improve.

“Have a good attitude and keep coming to work. We’re going to be OK and not freak out just because we got beat badly in one game.”

Cardinal O’Hara used second chances and fast-break opportunities off defensive rebounds and their nine steals to set up quality shots. They connected on 54.7 percent of their shots overall, including 65.6 percent from inside the arc while also adding eight 3-pointers.

Although Abington Heights had just 14 total turnovers, it was consistently disrupted by the Cardinal O’Hara defense.

“Where we struggled was offensive execution,” said Show, who was pleased with his team’s defensive performance in half-court situations. “Their defensive pressure sped us up. We had trouble initiating the offense and executing some of the things we want to do.”

Jordan Shaffer led the Comets with 16 points while Andrew Kettel and Robby Lucas had 13 each.

Lucas also contributed team-highs of six rebounds, five assists and three steals. Chris Begley had four assists and Harshal Patel blocked two shots.

The game was also the debut of former Wilkes-Barre Meyers and East Stroudsburg University player Ryan Krawczeniuk, a former AAU teammate of Show’s, as Cardinal O’Hara coach.

“J.C. and I grew up playing for John Bucci at JB Hoops,” Krawczeniuk said. “We’ve known each other since sixth grade. We needed a game to fill and so did they and it worked out.

“I was expecting a really good environment to play in, a well-coached team and a team that executed and that’s exactly what we got.”

Abington Heights scored the first five points when Kettel opened the game with a 3-pointer and Shaffer drove to the basket off a steal in the backcourt.

Kettel hit again while Shaffer and Lucas also connected as the Comets went 4-for-7 on 3-pointers in the first 6:13 before being held to 2-for-13 the rest of the way.

There were five ties and three lead changes before Cardinal O’Hara moved in front to stay two minutes into the second quarter during a 9-2 run in which reserve Tygee Clark hit three straight shots.

“Our message to our guys was that this needs to be a style game and our style is very up-tempo,” Krawczeniuk said. “We want to run, jump and play fast.

“It was kind of more about imposing our will on them than reacting to what they’re doing.”