ORWIGSBURG — The wait is finally over.
Tamaqua is headed back to the Schuylkill League playoffs after a 20-year absence.
Brett Kosciolek scored a game-high 22 points, but it was the Raiders’ defense that carried them to a 39-24 victory over Blue Mountain in a Division I contest Friday.
The win clinched the league wild-card berth for Tamaqua (18-4, 11-3 D-I) in what will be the Raiders first appearance in the league playoffs since 1995.
It’s been a long time coming for the program, and for senior starters Bo Rottet, Tyler Skripko, Nate MacDonald and Kosciolek. When they were freshmen, Tamaqua was 5-17. The Raiders improved to 14-10 in 2012-13 and then went 13-10 last season.
“We have worked for this since we were freshman,” Rottet said. “We didn’t have the best year our freshman year, but sophomore year and junior year, we just kept getting better and better and now senior year, now that we finally made it, it is just awesome.”
Tamaqua faces Division II champ Minersville (17-3, 12-1) in the league semifinals at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Martz Hall. The second game has Division III champ Mahanoy Area (17-4, 11-2) facing Division I champ Pottsville (22-0, 14-0) at 7:30.
“We’ve been striving for this for a while,” Kosciolek said. “We still have a lot of work to do. We are not happy just making it.”
The Raiders waited 20 years to get back to the league playoffs, and then had to wait a few extra days to clinch the final spot.
Tamaqua could have wrapped up the berth Tuesday, but the Raiders lost 50-43 at North Schuylkill. That meant Tamaqua had to win its final two division games. The Raiders did, starting with a 70-39 rout of Pine Grove on Thursday.
“It felt like crap,” Rottet said of the Raiders’ mood following Tuesday’s loss. “We knew what it felt like and we didn’t want it to happen again. We knew we had a chance to control our own destiny to get into leagues and we were able to win tonight and wrap it up.”
Kosciolek grabbed 10 rebounds to complete a double-double. Rottet added 11 points, seven rebounds and five assists, while MacDonald grabbed five boards.
Mark Chelius led the Eagles (11-10, 7-7) with nine points, while Brayden Lewis had eight.
Friday’s game wasn’t the prettiest, but the Raiders got it done. Tamaqua turned the ball over 19 times, was 0-for-9 from 3-point land and 5-for-13 from the foul line.
So the Raiders turned to their defense.
Tamaqua opened in a man-to-man, and switched back-and-forth between man, along with 2-3, 3-2 and even 2-1-2 zones. The Raiders struggled with their man as the game was tied at 10 after the first quarter.
Blue Mountain led 14-11 with 6:42 left in the first half after Lewis scored on a baseline layup. Then the Raiders finally settled and stuck with a 2-3 zone. They finished the first half with 10-point run to take a 21-14 halftime lead.
“We try to play with man principles, but it is a zone,” Tamaqua coach Caszy Kosciolek said. “I think it suits us well because we have 6-7 (Brett Kosciolek) in the middle. We were really able to close out on their shooters and we contested shots. Our man wasn’t the best, but we made adjustments and the kids talked a lot.”
Blue Mountain scored just 10 points the rest of the game, shooting 3-for-25 (12 percent) from the floor. The Eagles went without a field goal for 13 minutes from the second quarter into third. The dry spell was finally broken when Lewis worked his way inside and scored over Kosciolek with 55 seconds remaining in the third, cutting Tamaqua’s lead to 27-17.
“We were really active in the zone,” Brett Kosciolek said. “We played really hard with a lot of energy and we knew we had to step it up after the first quarter and we did a good job of that.”
The 22 points for Kosciolek was his best offensive performance this week. He had three field goals apiece in the first, second and third quarters and two more in the fourth.
Kosciolek and Rottet, who went over 1,000 points for his career in the Raiders’ win Thursday, also keyed Tamaqua’s second quarter run that put it in the lead for good.
Down 14-11, Kosciolek made it a one-point game when he put in a miss by Rottet. Rottet gave the Raiders the lead for good on their next possession as Kosciolek found him open for a layup.
Kosciolek scored on a 7-foot hook shot on Tamaqua’s next possession to make it 19-14 at 2:32. A little more than a minute later, Kosciolek put in a layup for a 21-14 advantage.
A Rottet layup at the third-quarter buzzer gave the Raiders their largest lead of the night at 31-19. Tamaqua was then content to spread it out and hold the ball in the fourth quarter, building leads of 16 points three times. The final came with 56 seconds left when Ben Miller hit the front end of a double-bonus situation to make it 39-23.
Game Summary
TAMAQUA (39) — Shilko 0 0-0 0, Blaker 1 0-0 2, Miller 0 1-4 1, Rottet 4 3-4 11, Wassell 0 0-0 0, Zuber 0 1-2 1, MacDonald 1 0-2 2, Murphy 0 0-0 0, Skripko 0 0-0 0, Kosciolek 11 0-1 22, Scott 0 0-0 0. Totals 17 5-13 39.
BLUE MOUNTAIN (24) — Stramara 1 0-0 2, Kerstetter 1 0-2 2, Barton 0 1-2 1, Welsh 0 0-0 0, Lewis 3 2-2 8, Chelius 4 1-2 9, Albertini 1 0-0 2, Bobbin 0 0-0 0, Zerbe 0 0-0 0, Biever 0 0-0 0. Totals 10 4-8 24.
Tam (18-4, 11-3) 10 11 10 8 — 39 BM (11-10, 7-7) 10 4 5 5 — 24
3-point FGs: None
JV score: Blue Mountain 54-43