A water main break that flooded parts of the PPL Center last Thursday could not dampen the spirits of the Northampton boys basketball team and the K-Kids’ faithful that followed them to Allentown as they beat Parkland 52-49 to win back-to-back EPC titles after having gone more than 50 years without a league championship.

Last year, the Kids entered the tournament as an unheralded 6 seed and proceeded to knock off the 3, 2, and 1 seeds in order to claim the crown. This year, they were the defending champs with all 6 of their main players returning to run it back.

“This year’s been different,” explained head coach Matt Scholl. “We’ve tried to keep the pressure off the kids as much as possible. I think we felt it a little because we’re not the underdog now.”

The K-Kids might not have been the underdog, but they still had to exorcise some demons in red and gray. Parkland had Mercy Ruled this group in the district championship game last March and was responsible for 1 of the Kids’ 4 losses in the regular season. The Trojans had been the top team in the local power rankings for most of the year.

Northampton dominated the first 16 minutes. They outrebounded their bigger foes by double digits on their way to building a 31-17 lead with just under two minutes left in the half. Two Parkland three-pointers got the margin back to single digits, 31-23 at the intermission.

The Trojans came all the way back to knot the game at 36 with two minutes left in the third quarter. A late 5-point spurt keyed by a Noah Walakovits 3, gave the Kids the lead back to start the final period.

Point-by-point Parkland crept closer. It took its first lead since the score was 2-1 with just 53 seconds remaining in regulation with a layup and 1 that brought their fans to their feet.

Trailing 49-48, the Kids put the ball in Walakovits’ hands. A one-handed floater in the lane rimmed out, but the senior grabbed the rebound and laid it back in sparking a roar from the Northampton side of the gym with 20 seconds left.

A missed Parkland shot, a Walakovits rebound, and two Jake Raysely free throws with 4 seconds left sealed the title, leaving the Trojans with just a desperation heave to attempt to tie.

Walakovits put together one of the great championship game performances in Northampton history with 23 points on 9 of 12 shooting from the field. And oh by the way, he notched his 1000th point in a Northampton uniform during the game to secure his place on the banner in Pete Schneider Gymnasium, where his name will be displayed forever.

Walakovits, who had been dealing with pneumonia, addressed his performance, “The last couple of games, I really wasn’t attacking it. I wasn’t playing like myself. I had to step for the team tonight.”

He continued, “I’ve been dreaming about it (getting 1,000 points) since I was in middle school. It was definitely a goal. It was a weird time to happen, during a championship game. I just wanted to get it out of the way.”

“I know Noah got to 1,000 today. He didn’t want to celebrate that moment. The dude just wanted to win the basketball game. This is a special group. I’m telling everybody that, but they really just want to win and they don’t care who gets the credit,” said Scholl.

One person who should get more credit than he does is Scholl himself. Assistant coach Phil Hall described Scholl, “He’s the most prepared coach ever. He has everything detailed out. We had a specific game plan going into every game. We put in a new offense in the last two days. He usually looks at us for ideas, but he put this together on his own the last two days and that’s what we ran the majority of the game.”

NHS 16 15 10 11 - 52

PHS 11 12 13 13 - 49

Northampton scoring: Walakovits 23, Simock 12, Raysely 10, Ramos 3, Regec 2, Raphun 2