Five weeks of preseason practice against the same guys, day in, day out, can make a basketball team hungry for change.

When that first game of the season finally arrives, it's like Christmas morning.

Friday night, Elizabethtown's men's basketball team shredded Penn State-Berks like so much holiday wrapping paper.

Senior forward Chad Piersol scored 23 points to lead five Blue Jays in double figures as E-town defeated the Lions 88-54 in the opening round of the Days Inn East Blue Jay Classic in Thompson Gym.

The win advances E-town to the championship game for the 11th time in the 16-year history of the tournament. The Jays have won six times, the last in 2004.

E-town was set to take on Methodist University for the title this afternoon at 3.

In the first game Friday night, Methodist, led by A.B. Lehman's 15 points, downed Rutgers-Camden 64-50.

It's been a long nine months since the curtain rang down on the Jays' uncharacteristic 9-15 campaign.

The last few weeks of that layoff were the longest.

"You have no idea — no idea," said Piersol, the most experienced of the Jays' veteran cast. "This is a whole different ballgame. We were excited all day."

"You need to play," E-town coach Bob Schlosser said. "You need people in the stands and you need to make it go for real."

The Jays let PSU-Berks know it was for real in no time flat.

Starting four sophomores and a junior, the Lions showed their youth, committing six turnovers on their first seven possessions.

PSU-Berks turned the ball over 19 times in the first half, with E-town collecting 33 points off of those turnovers.

Piersol scored 13 of the Jays' first 20 points, and PSU-Berks quickly trailed 20-5, just 5:23 into the game.

Subbing in 6-foot, 240-pound center Steve Fulton, the Lions clawed back to 20-16 as Fulton scored on back-to-back bucket-and-1 plays.

"That big guy, we just weren't being aggressive," said E-town senior guard Mike Schatzmann, a Pequea Valley grad. "We weren't focused."

E-town went back up by 10, then saw its lead carved to 26-20 with 8:19 left in the half on a jumper by Adam Fusco, who scored a team-high 11 points.

That was the last time the game was competitive.

Off the bench, E-town's Jordan Dirago dropped in a jumper from the foul line, then Josh Houseal, a Hempfield grad, scored on a spinning drive.

Schatzmann, who scored 15 points, converted a conventional three-point play, then he splashed a 3-pointer from the right corner off a skip pass from point guard Phil Schaffer, and E-town was back up 36-20.

The Jays took a 45-23 lead into halftime and expanded it to 34 points — 65-31 — as Solanco grad Mike Church scored six of his 12 points early in the second half.

From there, E-town's lead never got below 26.

Freshmen Keith Fogel and Joe Flanagan each added 10 points for the Jays.

"We played well," Schatzmann said, "I'd say a B-plus."

"It's a starting point," Piersol added, "but we've got a big game (today)."

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