Winning is starting to feel right to the York Suburban boys' basketball team.

Coming into Friday's showdown against West York with 10 straight wins to start the season, the Trojans did what has seemed to come naturally to them in 2008-09 -- start strong, control the game and earn the victory.

This time they did it with a 67-60 win in front of a sold-out home crowd against a program that is the two-time defending YAIAA tournament champion.

For the veteran Trojans, it was nothing earth-shattering. Just the same old result.

"We're a very confident team and we have certain goals and objectives that we want to meet," York Suburban coach Tom Triggs said. "Not to say it's a cliché, and we have a lot of respect for the West York program, but this was just one game.

"I think this is helping us to prepare for counties and districts -- and that's what we're using it for."

Mitch Kemp led Suburban with 17 points, including a 7-for-8 performance at the free-throw line. Thomas McInerney added 14 points and eight rebounds to help the Trojans stay undefeated going into Monday's showdown against fellow unbeaten and Division III rival Eastern York.

"It's a stepping stone. It's just one of many of our goals this year," Kemp said.

In a loss to West York last season, Kemp had what he said was "the worst game of my life," scoring only two points.

"It's good to get revenge, but we have a lot of big games coming up," he said.

Kemp and the Trojans never trailed

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against West York (4-4), jumping out to a 13-3 advantage only four minutes into the game and leading by as many as 19 points in the fourth quarter.

The Bulldogs pulled within five points with 23 seconds left, but could not complete the comeback and lost their third consecutive game.

West York coach Bill Ackerman said he couldn't ever remember the Bulldogs losing three straight contests during his 11 years at the helm of the program.

"We absolutely have potential, but not until we play like we did when our backs were truly against the wall," Ackerman said. "In a way, our backs are truly against the wall now."

After registering only six points in the first quarter and falling behind by 11, the Bulldogs outscored the Trojans in the second quarter and trailed by only 10 six minutes into the second half.

That's when Cole Wagner (10 points) hit a jumper at the right elbow to open up a 10-1 run that bridged the third and fourth quarters.

"We executed real well on the offensive end," Triggs said. "I just think the last week our offense has really matured. We've really been stressing in practice about making those extra passes.

"We're a running team, but when we don't have that break we need to have enough maturity and patience to break down the defense and allow them to make mistakes. I think we had some real open looks and some good looks underneath because we showed the patience offensively."

The Bulldogs still managed to keep themselves in the game with improved pressure defense and on-target outside shooting from brothers Ben Cable (16 points) and Luke Cable (8 points).

A Ben Cable 3-pointer from the right baseline cut the Suburban lead to five points with 23 seconds left, but Kemp hit a pair of free throws nine seconds later to score the game's final points.

"We got beat by a better team tonight because at times we didn't play together," Ackerman said. "When you play against a good team like Suburban, when you don't play together for even five minutes, they're going to take advantage. And that's exactly what they did."
smclernon@ydr.com; 771-2045