{"id":80798,"date":"2018-02-26T19:37:50","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T19:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"\/rcntv\/?p=80798"},"modified":"2023-04-14T19:30:13","modified_gmt":"2023-04-14T19:30:13","slug":"valleys-underrated-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astound.com\/atvn\/valleys-underrated-team\/","title":{"rendered":"The Valley\u2019s All-Underrated Team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Lehigh Valley has a number of star athletes who have excelled throughout the regular season and the first few weeks of the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>The star athletes get the most attention for their accolades, abilities and impressive statistics. However, I always try to look beyond the marquee names and highlight some of the tremendous efforts that might not get as much attention as they should.<\/p>\n<p>With that in mind, here a look at my \u201cAll-Underrated Team\u201d members&#8211;based entirely on my experiences of games I\u2019ve either announced, reported on or attended as a fan.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"Nazareth High School\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hs.nazarethasd.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nazareth\u2019s<\/a> Maihan Ramin<br \/>\nNazareth\u2019s point guard got a huge lift when Ramin\u2019s good friend and <a title=\"Penn State University Athletics\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gopsusports.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Penn State<\/a>-bound Jahan Dotson returned to the school this year, but Ramin was \u201cthe engine that drove the ship\u201d according to Blue Eagles\u2019 Head Coach Joe Arndt. Ramin ran an efficient offense, delivered some of the best passes I saw all year and, when Dotson was not available, stepped up with some key buckets. In his final home game against <a title=\"Liberty High School\" href=\"http:\/\/basdwpweb.beth.k12.pa.us\/liberty\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Liberty<\/a> in last week\u2019s district playoff game, he had one of the best all-around games of anyone in the post-season thus far.<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Allentown Central Catholic High School\" href=\"http:\/\/www.acchs.info\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Central Catholic<\/a> Girls Basketball Team<br \/>\nAside from us (see our blog two weeks ago), no one had the Vikettes advancing to the <a title=\"EPC\" href=\"http:\/\/www.epc18.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">EPC<\/a> final. Central Catholic\u2019s team contains a number of people who have flown under the radar this season. Margaux Eripret has been one of the top girls players in the EPC the last few years but hasn\u2019t seemed to have gotten the recognition of other top girls players in recent years, and Eripret realizes when other players have the hot hand, to find a way to give them the ball.Her teammates also have gone unheralded this winter and their improvement as the season has gone on just recently came into the spotlight with the team\u2019s success in the post-season. Regular contributors Jess Davis, Kayla Reed, Diana Kocsis, Morgan Dietz, and Lizzy Szmigiel all deserve to be in this category. Emily Vaughan is one of several outstanding freshman ball handlers who should NOT be in this underrated category by next season, and has outstanding potential that should be recognized sooner rather than later.<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Allen High School\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allentownsd.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Allen<\/a>\u2019s Malik Gordan<br \/>\nSome of the most aggressive defense and best passes I&#8217;ve seen have come from the Canaries boys basketball team, and Gordan has been a big part of Allen\u2019s success for a few years now. Last year, he fed two Division-I athletes the ball and played well in the shadows of two tremendous scorers. This year, the team has taken a more blue-collar approach in having success this year, and Gordan\u2019s blend of athleticism, court savvy and unselfishness have paced his team with great court-making decisions.<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Catasauqua School District\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cattysd.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Catty<\/a>\u2019s Cullen Bond &amp; Miguel Hernandez<br \/>\nIt\u00a0 isn\u2019t hard to overlook anyone besides Isaiah Graves, who frequently scored over 30 points per game for Catasauqua this winter, but on a team that didn\u2019t have much height, Bond was one of the guys chosen to guard the opponent\u2019s big man and did a lot of the blue-collar work on the rare occasions that Graves missed a shot. Bond was the Rough\u2019s tallest player (listed at 6-foot-2) and sometimes faced post players while giving up five (or more) inches in height, but never complained about his role in helping his team reach both the league and district playoffs for the first time in years.When it wasn\u2019t Bond in the post (he missed the last few weeks due to lung surgery), it was Hernandez (listed as 6-foot-even) who did tremendous work inside this winter, guarding taller players and grabbing down rebounds. Hernandez\u2019s singular effort in their game against a much taller <a title=\"Southern Lehigh High School\" href=\"http:\/\/www.slsd.org\/Domain\/160\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Southern Lehigh <\/a>team was one of my standout moments of the regular season.Bond is fighting to come back from the injury to help out his team during a playoff run and Hernandez missed last week\u2019s games to be with his ailing grandfather in Florida. Both deserve kudos for their work on the court and for what they\u2019ve had to deal with off the court.<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Liberty High School\" href=\"http:\/\/basdwpweb.beth.k12.pa.us\/liberty\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Liberty<\/a>\u2019s Amadeus Cannon<br \/>\nLike Graves, Cannon\u2019s efforts (over 11 points &amp; nearly eight rebounds per game) go under the radar because of the awesome scoring machine known as Alex Serrano at Liberty. The Hurricanes had to win the final three regular season games to clinch a playoff spot and, with every opponent\u2019s top priority being to shut down Serrano, Cannon\u2019s efforts down the stretch run were even more pivotal. Cannon\u2019s scholastic career numbers have been very solid over the last few years and he deserves a shout-out.(By the way, I listed Will Harper as a standout freshman star last year here at \u201cThe Shop\u201d and he\u2019s not getting the press he deserves, so make another note that you heard it here first if he shows up on an All-Star list a year from now).<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Easton High School\" href=\"http:\/\/eahs.eastonsd.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Easton<\/a>\u2019s Jonathan Pineda<br \/>\nWrestling teammate Jonathan Miers seemed to receive most of the individual attention for the Red Rovers this winter, but Pineda was a steady regular in <a title=\"The Morning Call\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mcall.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Morning Call\u2019s <\/a>\u201cTop Wrestler Rankings\u201d each week. Easton Head Coach JaMarr Billman was very complimentary when we asked about Jonathan\u2019s success and abilities on a recent \u201cSportsTalk\u201d program. Helping his chances of making the \u201cunderrated\u201d team\u2014Pineda was also a big piece of another underappreciated squad this fall\u2014the Rovers lineman on the school\u2019s football team.Pineda got to shine last weekend as the Rovers continued \u201cthe streak\u201d for their wrestling program by capturing a good medal in the <a title=\"District XI\" href=\"http:\/\/www.districtxi.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">District XI <\/a>Individual Wrestling Finals.<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Northampton Area High School\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nasdschools.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Northampton<\/a>\u2019s Cory Weisenberger<br \/>\nOn a team with Aidan Ellwood, it\u2019s easy to get lost in the shuffle. But make no mistake, Northampton\u2019s success this year was a great team effort, with lots of hustle and great defense all across the board. Weisenberger not only rose to the occasion when needed by providing some major offense during key games this year, but&#8211;on multiple occasions\u2014also realized when Ellwood had the hot hand and read what the opponents\u2019 defense was trying to do and found the best possible ways for the team\u2014not necessarily him\u2014to score.Weisenberger has also showed a tremendous amount of character during his career at Northampton and, without sounding too political, that\u2019s a more-valued commodity nowadays than anything that will ever show up on a stat sheet or post-season awards listing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I freely admit I\u2019m missing some names from this list and invite you to email me (<a href=\"mailto:rcnsportstalk@rcn.com\">rcnsportstalk@rcn.com<\/a> ) the names of athletes who you feel deserve extra attention and we\u2019ll look to mention them either here on my blog or on upcoming editions of \u201cSportsTalk.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Lehigh Valley has a number of star athletes who have excelled throughout the regular season and the first few weeks of the playoffs. The star athletes get the most attention for their accolades, abilities and impressive statistics. However, I always try to look beyond the marquee names and highlight some of the tremendous efforts&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"Yoast SEO Relevanssi index exclude","inline_featured_image":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-sportstalk-shop"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Valley\u2019s All-Underrated Team - ATVN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Valley\u2019s All-Underrated Team - ATVN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Lehigh Valley has a number of star athletes who have excelled throughout the regular season and the first few weeks of the playoffs. 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