Heading into the final week of the season and needing one more win to qualify for the District 11 playoffs, Panther Valley boys head basketball coach Pat Crampsie knew how important Saturday's contest against Palmerton was.

The Blue Bombers had just one win all season and the final two foes the Panthers would face are both playoff qualifiers (Pottsville and Tamaqua).Palmerton, on the other hand, wanted to make sure it's role as a spoiler would hold true.The Bombers managed to outscore the Panthers by 12 points through the first six minutes of the final quarter and finished off a 67-55 victory.It was the kind of outing that first-year head coach Leigh Keenan has been looking for from the Bombers all season."This is how we should play," Keenan said afterwards. "This is how I wanted them to play and we should have played like this all year."We just went after them. It was a decision they made themselves. Logan (Lesher) did a good job of bringing my guys together after every foul shot and that's what we needed all year.""The freshmen won today, the JV's won today, so we had to win. We needed that trifecta."The way the game started, it looked like the Panthers were well on their way as Kyle Ferryman scored nine first quarter points helping his team to a 16-12 lead.The Panthers opened up a 10-point lead (25-15) with five minutes still left in the first half when Keenan called a timeout to try and stop the bleeding. It seemed to work as the Bombers outscored the Panthers 11-4 the rest of the second quarter to trail just 29-26 at the half.A Jake Szczecina layup to start the third quarter gave the Panthers a five-point edge, but the Palmerton press kicked in and a 9-0 run gave the Bombers the lead 35-31.With just over a minute remaining, the Panthers fought back to tie the score, but a Ben Weber trey was answered by a Charles Nase bucket underneath making it a one-point Bomber lead (42-41) entering the final eight minutes.The Panthers managed one more lead on a Szczecina three-pointer with 7:23 remaining, before the Bombers took control with their run."Coming into this game, Palmerton really scared me," said Crampsie. "We saw them recently. They've lost a lot of close games and have lost to some very good teams. We knew (Mark) Quinn and (Spencer) Hay were players. And just recently (Mike) Stasko has looked very good."We knew that Palmerton could play, especially on their home court. Coach Kennan is doing a great job. They're a proud group of kids, they come to play every night and they've been battling all year. We expected a dogfight all night"They completely outplayed us. They out hustled us. They got the loose balls, they got the rebounds, they had second, third and fourth efforts to get put-backs. There were times the ball was coming off the rim and we're watching it and they're going to get it. We were outplayed, we were out coached. They definitely deserved this one and obviously it's a devastating blow for us."Hay finished with a double-double finishing with 20 points and 12 rebounds with eight of them off the offensive boards. Quinn added 16 points, nine rebounds and three blocked shots. Lesher also finished in doubles for the Bombers with 14 points and six assists.Ferryman's 21 was a game-high and Szczecina backed him up with 16."The season's not over," Crampsie lamented. "We've got to find a way to get one this week, it's that simple. Our backs are against the wall, we've been there before. We had too many guys playing scared out there and in this situation, that just can't happen."The Bombers picked up a 52-30 win in the JV game as Zach Buck and Mason Stahler had 12 points each.PANTHER VALLEYDubosky 2-0-1-4, Szczecina 6-0-0-16, Keo 0-0-0-0, Kusko 3-1-2-8, Stano 1-0-0-2, Hudicka 0-0-0-0, Ferryman 7-5-5-21, Nase 2-0-0-4, Vermillion 0-0-0-0, Horan 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 21-6-8-55.PALMERTONHay 9-2-3-20, Achtermann 4-0-2-8, Svetik 0-0-0-0, Lesher 6-0-0-14, Weber 2-0-0-5, Frey 0-0-0-0, Suto 0-0-0-0, Quinn 4-8-11-16, Rodrigues 0-0-0-0, Andress 0-0-0-0, Buck 0-0-0-0, Stasko 1-1-2-4. TOTALS: 26-11-18-67.Panther Vy. 16 13 12 14 - 55Palmerton 12 14 16 25 - 67Three-pointers: PV - Szczecina 4, Ferryman 2, Kusko 1; P - Lesher 2, Weber 1, Stasko 1.