New season, newfound success for Pocono Mountain East boys basketball

SWIFTWATER — This is not the same Pocono Mountain East basketball team from last season.

Last season, head coach Mark Dudley had to rely on senior guard Sebastian Fermin and a rotation full of underclassmen. The Cardinals finished the year 4-18 and sat at the bottom of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, with their only conference and division win coming against East Stroudsburg North.

This year, the hard-earned experienced is paying off in a big way, as East has turned it around to the tune of a 4-0 start. What's more impressive is that two of those wins came against division opponents in Pleasant Valley and Stroudsburg, surpassing the divisional and total wins from last season in only two weeks.

"Some of our younger guys matured," Dudley said about the team's turnaround. "Last year, they were sophomores and on the freshman team the year before that. They took some lumps as sophomores, and now, as juniors, they understand the speed and physicality of the game."

One of those juniors is center Parker Scoz, who nearly had a triple-double with a 19-point, 11-rebound, nine-block performance against a sizeable Pleasant Valley team. He gives the Cardinals an interior anchor on both sides of the ball, and while he may not be consistently on triple-double watch, his strength on the glass along with rim protection is what this team needs.

"He's coming into his own," Dudley said. "He's grown 3-4 inches over the last year and a half, so it's taken some time for him to get used to his body. But's he's put the work in, and I expect him to keep improving."

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East doesn't have Fermin's scoring punch anymore, but they do have senior guard Taemas Jones, who's currently one of the EPC's leading scorers at 28 points per game. Jones missed most of last season due to health issues, but he's on a mission to make the most of his final year, highlighted by a 40-point outburst against Delaware Valley.

"For me, it's my statement season," Jones said after scoring 25 in a win over Pleasant Valley. "I'm trying to score 1,000 and achieve a lot of accolades. And I'm trying to get a playoff win. I've never played in a playoff game, so I'm definitely trying to change that this year."

Jones' remarks about the postseason are similar to his head coach's, who said that it's "playoff or bust" for his squad. East currently sits atop the EPC as the only 4-0 team, but Dudley isn't letting the team get too far ahead of itself.

"Stay humble and hungry," Dudley said to his team before Friday night's game. "We haven't done what we've set out to do. This game is funny - a lot of things can happen. We got 18 games left, so stay the course, and hopefully thins turn out how we want them to turn out."

Pocono Mountain East has six more games in 2023 before playing the District 11 5A power rankings leader Whitehall, who sits at 4-1, to open the new year. Regardless of what comes next, however, the Cardinals have come a long way in a year's time.

This article originally appeared on Pocono Record: New season, newfound success for Pocono Mountain East boys basketball