Pennridge’s Dean Behrens is the 2018-19 boys’ basketball coach of the year

Before the Pennridge took the floor for the first time in 2018, Dean Behrens thought they had something special.

Then they scrimmaged Upper Moreland.

The best team in the school’s history, led by Navy recruit Sean Yoder, visited the Golden Bears a week after Thanksgiving, and the group the coach dreamed would dominate the Suburban One League and make a modest run in the state playoffs made the coach second-guess his lofty goals for the team.

“I got on the bus, and I remember saying, ‘I think we’re going to stink this year,’ ” Behrens said.

Luckily for the coach, he was wrong. Pennridge’s season ended in a double-overtime loss to Kennedy Catholic in the PIAA Class 6A state championship game. It was by far the furthest a Pennridge basketball team had ever gone, making Behrens’ the coach of the year.

But the final game doesn’t tell the full story. The team’s state playoff run was filled with clutch baskets, timely stops, and shocked faces as a Pennridge team no one saw coming continued to win on the biggest stages. The Rams won the four games leading into the state championship game by an average of four points.

Behrens is a fiery presence on the sideline, pacing the sideline, keeping track of debatable calls and reminding the refs of their mistakes, and running animated huddles. Finishing his 21st season at Pennridge, he gets the most out of his players, but he still gives them the freedom to make plays in the game’s biggest moments.

The Rams beat Abington after losing to the Ghosts three times. They beat Methacton on Yoder’s fall-away three-pointer as time expired. They beat a tough La Salle team in the state semifinals and battled Kennedy Catholic, a school that has now won four straight state championships, to double overtime.

How did a team that only returned two major contributors from the season before beat some of the area’s best squads, win a school-record 17 straight games, and find itself headed into double overtime for a state title?

“Our kids gave it everything they had. They had nothing left in the tank,” Behrens said. “[I told them] we’ve got nothing to lose. We’re playing a basketball game. We’re not going to make this complicated. ... You’re playing with your best buddies.”

The Rams held a banquet last week to finish off their season. It was longer than usual.

They had a lot to talk about.

Behrens’ favorite memories include the time they scrimmaged Methacton before the state playoffs began, thinking the chances of the teams’ meeting that deep into the bracket were small enough to risk it.

There was the coach’s promise to his players that, win or lose, they would go get cheesesteaks after the quarterfinal game against Lincoln at South Philadelphia, and the “experience in itself” that was fitting a school bus down the narrow South Philly side streets much to the dismay of the traffic they encountered around them.

And, finally, the school and the surrounding community rose to support the historic group of players.

“I never saw a community get so behind a team and get so excited,” Behrens said. “There were people running to the athletic office to get tickets. It was like a stampede. ... I thought that was really cool. The buzz of the school, they were so fired up.”