Mercury Swaim
BEDFORD — Sometimes, just winging it is the best option.
That’s been the case for the Bedford Area High School boys basketball team in recent games, and it was again on Wednesday night.
With time winding down, junior guard Mercury Swaim hit a 3-point shot from the left corner to give the Bisons a heart-stopping 45-44 victory over Penn Cambria in a District 5-6 Class 4A quarterfinal playoff game at the Bedford Area High School gymnasium.
Penn Cambria held a 44-42 lead before the Panthers missed the front end of a 1-and-1 free-throw opportunity with 24 seconds left and Bedford senior center Josh Koontz grabbed the rebound.
Bedford coach Jason Ressler opted not to call a timeout, and the Bisons got the ball downcourt, where Ressler’s son, Steven, a standout senior guard, took possession in the upper part of the key and found Swaim open in the left corner.
Swaim’s shot popped off the front of the rim and took a shooter’s roll down through the cylinder just before the buzzer sounded, giving Bedford (16-4) the victory in a game in which the Bisons had trailed for all of the second half and by as many as 11 points in the third quarter.
The victory moves Bedford on to the semifinal round and a game with top-seeded Tyrone on Saturday.
“It just feels amazing,” Swaim said of Bedford’s fantastic finish. “It was a great team effort. The game came down to the wire. Steven made a nice drive, kicked the ball out to me, and I hit the shot. It was a nice team win. I’m proud of our guys.”
Jason Ressler had confidence that his team could find a good shot at the end of the game, and he let the players decide to take it on their own.
“We just let things flow, I let the guys create the play and see if they could find something, and they made the shot,” Jason Ressler said. “We just played a game against Chestnut Ridge where the same thing happened. We were down by one point, I let the guys figure things out, and they got a shot to win the game at the buzzer.
“I think that it was good to go through that before. It helped them to handle that situation, and to stay calm.”
Bedford entered the tournament as the fourth seed. Penn Cambria, which finished the year with a 12-8 record, was the fifth seed. It shaped up as an intriguing matchup, and it was. It was also an extremely difficult pill for the losing Panthers to swallow.
“This is one of the toughest I’ve ever had to deal with,” Penn Cambria coach Jim “Scooter” Ronan said. “This is a tough way to go out. I am extremely proud of our team. I knew that this would be an absolute war at the end, and unfortunately, they got that last bounce to go their way.”
Steven Ressler led Bedford with a game-high 18 points and became the school’s all-time leading basketball scorer when he nailed a 3-point shot midway through the second quarter. Ressler broke the previous school scoring record of 1,690 points that had been established by Troy Harris many years back.
“It’s always been a goal of mine,” Steven Ressler said of achieving the scoring record. “It was a goal that I had set for myself back when I was in middle school. It feels awesome to reach it.”
Losing Wednesday’s game would have surely tempered that thrill for Steven Ressler quite a bit. That wasn’t an issue, though, as Bedford — which also got 17 points from Swaim, including five 3-pointers — erased a 36-30 deficit after three stops by carrying the fourth quarter, 15-8.
Trailing, 40-36, Bedford tied it, 40-40 on a one-handed layin by sophomore Ethan Weber and Steven Ressler’s layup following Swaim’s rebound and outlet pass with two minutes left.
Sophomore guard Garrett Harrold, who led Penn Cambria with 15 points, hit two free throws with two minutes left to give Penn Cambria a 42-40 lead, before Koontz — who pulled down a game-high 12 rebounds — converted a pair of free throws with 1:44 left for Bedford to tie the score again, 42-42.
Harrold’s short turnaround jumper with about a minute left regained the lead, 44-42 for Penn Cambria, but the Panthers — who also got 12 points from senior forward Carter Smith — just couldn’t close the deal down the stretch.
Bedford’s tenacity had a lot to do with that.
“We’ve been in a couple games where we’ve had to come from behind,” Steven Ressler said. “That got us ready for this. Our guys are warriors. We played as hard as we could the whole time.”
Game notes: Penn Cambria made 19 of 52 floor shots (36 percent), while Bedford converted 16 of 40 (40 percent) … Bedford held a 30-23 rebounding edge.
PENN CAMBRIA (44): Harrold 6 3-3 15, Smith 6 0-0 12, Karabinos 3 1-3 7, McCarthy 2 0-0 5, Tsikalas 2 0-1 5, O’Donnell 0 0-0 0, Reese 0 0-0 0. Totals – 19 4-7 44.
BEDFORD (45): Koontz 2 2-2 6, K. Ressler 0 0-0 0, S. Ressler 7 3-4 18, Swaim 6 0-0 17, Weber 1 2-2 4, Wilson 0 0-0 0, Washington 0 0-0 0, Ebersole 0 0-0 0. Totals – 16 7-8 45.
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Penn Cambria 10 10 16 8 — 44
Bedford 9 10 11 15 — 45
3-point goals: Penn Cambria 2 (McCarthy, Tsikalas); Bedford 6 (Swaim 5, S. Ressler).
Officials: Cliff Kitner, Dan Amrhein, Tony Hutzell.
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