Nest Notes
Basketball, 2013-14
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Mike DeMarchi, a 2011 graduate of Conwell-Egan High, had a few stints with the basketball and baseball teams at CEC and is now a junior at Temple University, majoring in Sport&Rec Management. He's also now coaching CYO ball.
He can be reached at demarchi411@aol.com.
DEC. 21
NON-LEAGUE
Conwell-Egan 51, Bethlehem Catholic 40
  Most people in Conwell-Egan’s gym knew nothing about Bethlehem Catholic before Saturday’s non-league game. What was known however was that BC’s Freddie Simmons Jr. (4-8 10 points) is a Division 1 recruit with offers from Pitt, Rutgers and Syracuse and Justin Lenzer (4-6 13 points) can shoot the lights out in the gym. Coming off of a win against Gratz on Friday, I expected the Eagles to come out strong but they were having trouble making their layups. Only two members of CEC would score in the first, LaPri Pace (7-12 19points) with 5 points and Sean Kelly(4-6 10points) with 4. Egan Was on top 9 to 6 after one quarter was in the books so the defense was there for them so they just need to finish better and possibly give a few more looks into the post. The entire game you heard Egan’s coach Frank Sciolla screaming “Don’t let #12 (Lenzer) shoot” and in the second Justin Lenzer showed us why. He set up maybe a few steps across half court and buried his second trey of the day his range was truly unlimited. Those two threes were Lenzer’s only points thus far and Simmons had matched him in the 2nd quarter alone coming on strong to give Bethlehem Catholic the lead. Vinny Dalessandro provides most of the rebounding normally for CEC, but with him being haunted by early foul trouble everyone else had to get involved with Kelly leading the way. Going into the half Bethlehem Catholic had the lead 19-18 with some momentum going into the 2nd half. With Sciolla frustrated with his offense, he switched the Eagles into the patented Carolina offense to spread out the floor in the 2nd half and it actually opened up a couple of 3’s courtesy of Stevie Jordan (3-6 10 points) and Sean Kelly. After three quarters Bethlehem Catholic still held the lead barely by a score of 30-29. After only scoring 29 points through three quarter the CEC offense finally woke up in the fourth scoring 22 in final period of play. Good defense got it going then you add in the fact they were beating Bethlehem’s diamond press every time and you have a significant lead. Bethlehem Catholic put up good fight in this one, but the Eagles moved on to 7-0.

DEC. 20
NON-LEAGUE
Conwell-Egan 63 Simon Gratz 52
  Walking into Conwell-Egan’s gym today I was excited to see what the 5-0 Eagles were made of. The Eagles have returned three starters in Stevie Jordan (6-9 24 pts), LaPri Pace (1-2 5pts), and Vinny Dalessandro (6-7 13pts), who are all sophomores. With a solid supporting cast and a new coaching staff that is headed by Frank Sciolla, the future looks pretty bright. CEC has yet to see a CL opponent but the Simon Gratz Bulldogs are certainly not a tune-up game. As the game got under way, CEC came out really aggressive on defense and did a good job on their defensive assignments. For the most part the Bulldogs were scoring primarily off of broken plays, so as the season moves on CEC will have to improve upon their rebounding because right now they are allowing too many offensive rebounds. The good news however is that along with good defense, the Eagles have improved on their passing and Stevie Jordan has really come a long way from his freshman campaign. Transfer Chase Kumor (3-7 6pts), also appears to be a key component in Sciolla’s offense and even though he did not have the best game this evening he will be big for CEC down the stretch. At the end of one quarter, the Eagles were up 16 to 14 and Dalessandro was 5-5 with 10 points. As the game moved on Gratz was moving the ball well and Malik Tyndale (1-5 4pts) is getting to the rack with his speed but they were simply not finishing. The Bulldogs would only score 3 point in the entire second quarter, and Jordan managed to score 7 points for CEC shooting perfect from the field. With Egan up 29-17 at halftime, Gratz seemed to have life sucked out of them besides Quasim White (3-4 9pts), who was enthusiastic throughout the entire game. After halftime the game began to get a bit too chatty with players from each team complaining to the refs and their coaches as well. For Egan this should not be too much of a problem because Sciolla brings a lot of emotion while coaching, so if there is an actual problem he will be sticking up for his players, which is a delightful change from the past. The Gratz Bulldogs were not necessarily playing bad defense in the second half, it just appeared their offense was in a stand still. At the end of three quarters the score was 44-27 in favor of Egan and all signs pointed towards the Eagles getting the W. The 4th was kind of a formality, but you have to give Gratz credit for their effort. Jordan’s eleven fourth quarter points carried CEC to victory. Joseph Burnett led the Bulldogs in scoring with 12 points, while Jordan finished with 24. Sean Kelly (4 pts) and Vinny Dalessandro led the way for CEC in the rebounding category but the Eagles will need to find more support to compete with upper echelon of CL teams. In closing, Frank Sciolla has already made major progress in turning this program around and placing it in the right direction.