READING RAILERS ROUT MARYLAND; WIN 112-81

March 15, 2008

Box Score: L 112-81, (6-13)

(By: Mike Drago- Reading Eagle)

Reading, PA -- Five weeks ago, when his Railers were struggling to find their way in the new Premier Basketball League, Reading coach Sal Mentesana presented what seemed a lofty goal: He wanted to see his club, 2-7 at the time, finish with a winning record.

“Didn’t think that was gonna happen,” admitted Railers forward Jared Mills, amazed as anyone that his club indeed has been able to come all the way back.

Reading’s dominating 112-81 win over visiting Maryland Saturday was the latest evidence of its turnaround.

The Railers’ 31-point victory — their largest of the season — gave them a boost going into today’s regular season finale at Wilmington and heading into the single-elimination playoffs, which begin Tuesday in Chicago.

“We’re just excited about our opportunities going into the playoffs right now,” said Railers guard Lennox McCoy, who scored 17 points, matching Tayron Thomas for team-high. “We want to go into the playoffs with momentum, and it starts here today.”

The Railers (9-9) broke from an early tie with an 18-4 run late in the first quarter and were in command the rest of the way.

The Nighthawks (6-13), a pincushion for the Railers all season, never made any kind of serious run after that. They came to the Sovereign Center with just seven players, and were missing their top two scorers, Derick Payne and Randy Gill. A Railers spokesman said several of the Maryland players stayed home to attend a funeral.

The Railers, now 4-0 against Maryland, put it away with a strong run late in the first half, one that Mills spurred with some terrific passing on inside cuts and Thomas ignited with several steals and easy baskets.

“We’ve had success running on them before,” Mentesana said, “so we just felt we needed to up-tempo the game, make them run. They’re down (with a short roster) and they’re hurting.”

Mills, playing in front of his former Central Catholic coach Snip Esterly and the current Cardinals team, applied plenty of that hurt. He had his typical all-around, rock-solid game, with 16 points, a dozen boards, six assists and a pair of steals in just 27 minutes.

“He’s really so solid,” Mentesana said. “He’s become the kind of player that you can write him in for certain numbers, and there’s not a lot of guys like that. He gets his 14 to 20 points, his six, seven, eight rebounds, plays good defense, gets assists, handles the ball very well for a big guy.

“He does it night in and night out. It’s nice from a coaching standpoint that when you write his name in the lineup you know what you’re going to get every single night. I don’t know that he’s had a bad game.”

Mills was one of six Reading players to reach double digits in scoring, but the key, he said, was the way the Railers continue to play defense.

They have held their opponents below 100 points seven times in their last 10 games; the 81 points were the fewest they have allowed all season, and the fewest Maryland has scored.

“It didn’t really matter how many guys they had,” Mills said of Maryland, “it’s just the fact that we’re at our best when we play defense the way we did today. All year long we’ve shown signs of it, as far as playing help-side, stopping the drives on the baseline, cutting off drives.

“We emphasized that a lot this week. That’s how we get our fastbreaks, that’s how we get our points.”