You just had a feeling Ben Davis wasn’t going to go away that easily. The 5-foot-10 senior wasn’t about to play his last high school game. Not if he could help it. And for about three quarters Friday night, Davis had singlehandedly kept the Lions competitive against West Chester Rustin in the first round of the PIAA District 1 Class AAAA playoffs.
Rustin was almost perfect from three-point range in opening a comfortable first-half lead, and applied some stubborn defense that shut down Penncrest in the fourth quarter en route to a 48-29 victory.
Rustin, the No. 6 seed, will advance to the second round against perennial state power Penn Wood, the No. 11 seed, and improved to 20-3, while Penncrest’s season ended at 12-11.
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Penncrest was led by Davis, who scored a team-high 15 points. Rustin was led by Cory Blake with a game-high 19 points, and teammate Zach Butcher chipped in with 18.
"We obviously had expectations about this game, and we lost almost everyone from last year’s team, but we wanted to prove we could still win," Davis said. "No one thought we’d win this game but us."
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It was an interesting contrast in styles. Penncrest likes to play a delayed, pass-oriented, time-eating style, relying heavily on three-point shooting, while Rustin, with its superior size inside in 6-foot-6 junior Anthony Nash and Blake, a 6-foot-4 senior, pounding the inside.
The twist is that it was Rustin hitting from the outside. In fact, the Golden Knights were 5-for-7 from three-point range in the first half in building a lead. Penncrest led twice, 6-5 and 9-7, thanks to a pair of three-point baskets from Ian Campbell and Davis. But each time the Lions nailed a big trey, Rustin came down and answered.
There were three lead changes in the first nine minutes.
After Rustin’s Butcher nailed a three-point shot, which gave the Golden Eagles a 10-9 lead with 6:10 left in the first half, it was the last lead change. Rustin went on to a 21-14 halftime lead, and in one seven-minute span, the Golden Eagles outscored Penncrest 20-3—boosting their lead to 33-17, Rustin’s largest of the game.
From there, however, Penncrest began chipping away. Led by Davis, who went on a seven-point tear, the Lions got within 35-26 by the end of the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, Rustin shut out the lights. Penncrest got stuck on 26 and the Lions didn’t come off the number until there was less than a minute to play in the game.
By then, Rustin had built a substantial lead by walking away with a 48-29 victory.
"I’m so proud of these guys, three years ago, the seniors on that team set the bar high and these seniors refused to let the bar go down, and keep us at this level," Penncrest coach Mike Doyle said. "There were a lot of tears after the game. But this has been a special group. The seniors bled for this team—literally and figuratively."
