After a long, three-month summer season, the Parkland High School boys basketball team concluded its offseason at the A-town Throwdown event at Cedar Beach park on the last weekend of July.

The Trojans went 1-1 in round robin, pool play and qualified for the playoff format, but fell in their first game on Sunday. Head coach Andy Stephens was satisfied with the weekend overall.

“I thought we definitely got better as a team throughout the weekend” said Stephens. “I thought we had solid contributions from a lot of guys collectively. It was good for the guys to continue playing teams they don’t normally see and that are talented.”

On Friday night, Parkland defeated Bishop McDevitt 54-40 in its opening game. On Saturday night, on court one, in one of the most attended games of the weekend, the Trojans fell to New Jersey power Camden High School 60-53. The game under the lights had a lot of eyes on it with Division I talent from Camden and one of District 11’s top teams.

On Sunday morning, Parkland was downed by Phillipsburg 41-33 in the playoffs.

“That Camden game was a lot of fun,” Stephens said. “They are a great team and our guys did not back down. I thought we played really well and put ourselves in a position to win. Phillipsburg played well as a team. We were a little flat Sunday morning after a real tough game on Saturday night.”

Once again, the Trojans were led by a variety of players, including Matt Ray, Nick Coval and Joey Gerbasio. Stephens has noted all summer that the team can have multiple players step up in any game and Ray agrees.

“It shows that we have a lot of depth on this team,” Ray said. “Guys are willing to compete and play with the best of them. Everyone on this team will do whatever it takes to win and that’s really a testament to us.”

Parkland, which won both the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and District 11 6A championships, also took home the Lehigh Valley summer league title in July. The program is positioned to do big things again this upcoming season.

“I feel good about this team heading into the season,” said Ray. “We obviously have to keep working and keep giving it our all. Nothing is going to come easy or be given to us. We just need to keep playing our kind of basketball and we hope for the best.”