Malvern headed to GA for a Friday night showdown to see who would be the only team left in the Inter-Ac with an untarnished record.  For whatever reason, they decided to play in the middle school gym, which is very small. I guess this is why GA’s student section felt like they belonged on the court with the players instead of in the nonexistent stands.  This also includes the cheer squad, which Joe “THWND” McLaughlin described best when he said, “I guess the chess club doubles as the cheer squad.”
The game started off slow but with just two minutes left in the first quarter Steve “How official do you want me to be” Perpiglia hit back to back 3s.  Now I will give credit where credit is due, giving it to GA that they were quite loud throughout the game.  However they started the countdown for the end of the first quarter far too early causing their own player to heave the ball up from mid-court when he had 5 seconds left, Tom “I can make anything from a dunk to a full court shot” Pitt got the rebound and threw up a 3/4-court shot that went in before the buzzer went off yet the ref did not allow the shot to count.  Now I try to not be too biased but this ref crew (besides the one decent ref, the skinny balding one) might have made some of the worst calls I have ever seen in my life from a ref reversing his call three times about who the ball was out on to Julian “I had enough time to repaint the lane” Moore never getting called once for parking himself in the lane for every possession.  This led to the first quarter ending with Malvern leading 11-3.
In the second quarter Brendan “None of your chants phase me” Kilpatrick took the game in to his own hands getting back to back dunks taking the score to 15-7.  Kilpatrick continued contributing to his 17-point game total when he drained a long range 2 followed by a block on the other side of the court.  Then Stevie P hit another 3 to take the Friars up 27-19 at half.
The third quarter started of with GA coming out swinging taking the lead for the first time in the game but BK got a dunk and then a 3 to give the Friars the lead back at 38-36.  Then on a rare miss by Steve, Alex “I talk in the form of playing” Dentinger showed his power down low to get the rebound and the put back making him one of the four players who scored for Malvern in the game taking the score at the end of the 3rd quarter to 40-36.
Everyone in the packed gym knew that they were in action packed 4th quarter.  Steve started off the scoring for the Friars with their 4th three of the game, adding to his 18-point game total.  Pitt returned to the game after getting in foul trouble early in the game and made his presence felt immediately, scoring on his first play to take the score to 45-41.  Then juniorRyan “I take the game winning charge” Ammerman came up with the ball in a scramble on the ground. However this used up the Friars’ second-to-last timeout, leaving them with only one for the remaining 4:21. Yet, Jim “I keep my cool” Rullo managed with the one timeout.  The final 4 minutes of the game brought out a David and Goliath matchup with FriarNation 4 deep split between both sides of the court due to the size restrictions of the gym taking on GA’s 100+ student sections.  The score came to 47-46 Malvern as the Friars had the ball, then with 39 sec left in the game Brendan was tripped and lost the ball out of bounds and with no foul called GA had the ball.  The clock went down to 11.8 second left until GA called a timeout.  During this timeout the rivalry in the stands got a little tense as Matt “I wear tight pants” Greskoff and Jake “I am training myself for Duke” Stokes started a “Let’s Go Malvern” chant that could be heard thought the small gym.  However this led to a “we can’t hear you chant” due to our small size yet just as loud as GA’s students a “Scoreboard chant was started”.  Finally the real match got back under way and as everyone saw coming all the way from beyond the key Nick “I only got 7 points this game” Lindner drove straight for the hoop expecting to get fouled.  Unfortunately for Lindner Ammerman saw this drive the entire way and stood firm on his ground to draw the charge with 3.8 seconds left.  GA managed to tip the inbound pass and get the ball, but they could not manage to get enough control to get a shot off.  While the game on the court may have ended here the GA student section felt the need to respond to a “we can’t hear you chant, with a “sit down Rugby” chant.  How GA managed to find out that I play Rugby I don’t know, seeing as they do not have a rugby team of their own, nor was I wearing any rugby clothing.  With this win the Friars move to 16-0 and 3-0 in Inter-Ac play.