There were some close calls and some blowouts, games where they could coast, and even a bench-clearing altercation. All of this occurred in a weekend of basketball for Parkland at the SportsFest A-town Throwdown tournament.

The Trojans played the maximum number of games, winning their first six before dropping the seventh, the championship game, on their way to taking second place in the 48-team pool play format.

“We’ve talked a lot about everyone sticking to their role and not doing too much,” said senior guard Jake Bartholomew. “We need to continue to gel and play as a team, and this weekend showed how we’ve grown since early in the summer. You can see that the team chemistry is really starting to come along, and we’re beginning to see the potential the team has.”

Parkland made easy work of its group stage games, winning by an average margin of 27 points.

Opening on Thursday night, the Trojans were quick to dispatch of Morris Hills 71-33. They didn’t play again for nearly 48 hours. On Saturday night, Parkland defeated Susquehanna 52-31, then an hour later beat Northwestern Lehigh 61-39 to win Group E.

Despite the yearly goal of making it to the final day of the two big summer tournaments, the Trojans failed to do so at the Cedar Beach Bash three weeks ago. They made up for it last weekend.

“Trust in each other,” Bartholomew said was key to making the tournament run. “The coaches and upperclassmen have started to trust the younger players, and they’ve started to step into their roles and really get comfortable. They’re starting to know now what they need to do to help the team win.”

Head coach Andy Stephens was pleased with what he saw from his group.

“I told them that I’m impressed with how far they’ve come in the last three or four weeks,” said Stephens. “We’re playing a lot more confidently. I’m glad they’re starting to buy in to the system, and we’re sharing the ball and getting good looks at the basket. We just couldn’t buy a bucket in the championship game.”

The Trojans had a strong Sunday showing, first winning in a morning matchup against Eastern Academy 54-48, their closest margin thus far. They had a much easier time in the quarterfinals against Bensalem, earning a 56-38 victory.

But against Philadelphia powerhouse Constitution in the final four round, Parkland was in for a fight, literally and figuratively.

Leading throughout the majority of the game, the Trojans found themselves up by two and playing defense with under 30 seconds left.

A miss by Constitution led to a Parkland rebound and pass up court to dribble out the clock. But before the clock struck zero, a Constitution player grabbed a Trojan and shoved him to the ground in an attempt to foul him to stop the clock. The benches cleared, the refs and security intervened, and the game was called with Parkland holding on for a 46-44 win.

That might have taken the wind out of the sails. In their fourth game in about an eight-hour span, the Trojans didn’t have enough left in their tanks to hang with Chambersburg, as they took the final 48-31 Sunday evening.

With a couple of weeks left of summer league basketball, Parkland made a nice comeback statement heading into the season.

Bartholomew and Zach Stendell both made the All-tournament team.