North Clips Neshaminy to Complete Perfect League Season

Riding high on the wave of an 18-game winning streak, entered Friday night’s home game against Neshaminy with an opportunity for a perfect record in the Suburban One League National for the first time ever.

With history on the line, Council Rock North Indians seniors Charlie Anastasi and John Raymon made sure that their team wasn’t going get its first blemish in its last league game.

With the game tied at 34 and Neshaminy holding on for the last shot, Anastasti stole the ball from Ryan Arcidiacono and passed it ahead to a wide open Raymon, who laid it in with 7.1 seconds remaining to put the Indians ahead for good. The final score was 38-34, Council Rock North.

“I’m not sure what happened,” Anastasi said after leading the way offensively for his team with 15 points. “John [Raymon] tipped the ball and it just came to me.”

Neshaminy did have the opportunity to tie, but North’s defense forced Tyler Katz to throw an errant inbound pass with 1.6 seconds left and Arcidiacono was assessed a technical foul after the turnover that allowed Aaron Morgan to sink two free throws to ice the game and a perfect league record.

“With the coaching and the talent that is in this league, it says a lot about our maturity and our senior leadership and our talent,” North’s head coach Derek Wright said. “It’s a pretty nice accomplishment.”

Both teams struggled to score for most of the game. Neshaminy did a great job defensively, holding North’s leading scorer Arron Goodman to a season-low two points. The Indians were able to limit everyone but Arcidiacono.

Arcidiacono dropped in a game-high 18 points, knocking down four threes to keep his team in the game from start to finish.

In the end, however, Arcidiacono’s game effort was not enough, as North’s defense grinded away just enough to create one last opportunity to secure the victory.

“I really wanted to dunk the ball,” Raymon said. “But Coach Wright says, as long as it goes in the rim it counts. I wanted to win the game. I didn’t want to lose. We all wanted it. Just the hustling part is what makes us win. When I got that layup it just felt so good putting the ball in the rim.”

With the game and a perfect league season behind them, the Indians will now turn their attention to a non-league game against Ridley on Saturday before the postseason begins.

For Friday night however, The Indians earned the right to celebrate.

“It feels great,” Raymon said. “Our team has been working for this for a long time. It’s a great achievement, but also we have a lot of things to do with districts and states ahead of us.”