It had never happened before during the history of the premier summer league tournament, and the Parkland boys basketball program fell one win shy of becoming the first team to repeat as champions of the 20th annual Stellar Catch A Rising Star Showcase tournament last weekend at Cedar Beach Park.

Down two starters all weekend (Kyle Stout had an injured ankle and Sam Iorio was at an AAU tournament in Massachusetts), the Trojans won all of their games before dropping the final 54-45 to Archbishop Carroll on Sunday night.

"We're not making any excuses whatsoever," head coach Andy Stephens said. "We lost to a good team, and it was a good game. We got out of the tournament what we wanted to. We just didn't shoot the ball particularly well in the second half.

"They just played better and smarter defense, and then they also knocked down their foul shots."

Playing in front of a large, pro-Parkland crowd, the Trojans jumped out early and held a sizeable lead up until taking a 28-21 edge at halftime.

Senior Devante Cross, who was named a first-team All-Tournament All-Star, hit three of the five Parkland first half three-pointers, and tallied 12 first half points. But the lead quickly vanished in the second half, as the Trojans missed on all of their three-point attempts and struggled from the field.

Archbishop Carroll fought back and trailed just 39-37 before using an 11-2 run to take the lead back, and held on for the tournament title.

Parkland opened up their Stellar run with a narrow victory against Palisades on Friday evening. On Saturday, they took down Spring-Ford 40-36 with Kenny Yeboah tallying a team-high 13 points.

Then on Sunday the Trojans opened up the morning with a 45-35 victory against Central Catholic, and leading scorer Jack Dreisbach helped the cause with 12 points. The next two wins also came against East Penn Conference foes in Bethlehem Catholic (65-54), and Freedom (57-48). Yeboah was the leading scorer in the Becahi game with 20, and Cross led the way against the Patriots with 19 points.

"We wanted to get a lot of playing time for different guys, and they got that experience in front of a couple hundred people," said Stephens. "A lot of guys stepped up off the bench and that's what we wanted to see. So, for us, it was still a good tournament."

Michael Zeky was voted as the tournament's sixth-man award winner.

Parkland will now set its sights on taking home another Sportsfest tournament title this weekend.