Manheim Township boys' basketball coach Jim Kreider issued a wry grin Thursday night when asked about Lancaster Catholic guard Bryan Rivera.

"Our team defense wasn't too bad, he just made tons of plays," Kreider said after Rivera poured in a season-high 29 points to key the Crusaders' 60-56 win in a Lancaster-Lebanon League semifinal playoff game at Penn Manor.

"The little guy," he added, "can play."

Indeed, the 5-foot-8 Rivera scored 13 in the fourth quarter, connecting on a pair of 3-pointers and 7 of 9 from the free-throw line.

"Everybody was doubting us, saying we're too small," said Rivera, whose previous season-best of 28 points came in a Dec. 22 win over Garden Spot.

"We had to execute on offense and get some defensive stops."

The Section Four champion Crusaders (19-5) succeeded on both fronts and advanced to Saturday's 1 p.m. title game at Township opposite city rival and Section One runner-up McCaskey (19-5).

As good as Rivera was, he wasn't alone in leading Catholic to its first L-L final since 2007, when it fell to the Red Tornado.

Robby Rowe scored 11 points and sank 6 of 8 free throws in the final three minutes, and Erik Goldbach added 10 points.

And then there was Catholic's defense, which doesn't list a player over 6-foot-1 but found strength in numbers. The Crusaders packed it in down low, denied the Blue Streaks their strong transition game and ultimately limited the Section One champions to 18 of 51 (35 percent) shooting from the field.

"We knew they liked to get up and down (the court)," Crusader coach Joe Klazas said. "It was important for us to control the tempo."

"Everybody said we were too small," said Rowe. "They had mismatches inside (Township's front line includes 6-5 Billy Vaughan-Geib, 6-2 Jomar Guerrerro and 6-6 Shawn Hines). We packed it in and played great team defense."

Guerrerro and guard Niki Veronis scored 15 apiece to pace Township (19-4) and guard Cory Stoltz scored 11. Vaughan-Geib grabbed a game-best 12 rebounds, including six on the offensive glass.

Guerrerro added eight boards, and it was his rebound basket that fueled a personal run of five straight points to forge a tie at 48 with 3:26 left.

Rivera and Rowe, who together scored Catholic's final 15 points, combined to go 6 of 7 from the free-throw line for a 54-48 advantage.

Vaughan-Geib scored from the lane and Township, which trailed by as much as 10 in the third quarter, twice cut its deficit to two in the final 19 seconds on a driving layup by Tyler Karpinski and Vaughan-Geib's rebound bucket.

The latter came with 5.3 to go, and it was left to Rivera to close it out with a pair of free throws from the line with four ticks remaining.

"We had to stop their bigs, we had to shut Billy down," Rivera said. "Omar (Lopez), Patrick (Kenney) and Andrew (Long) did a great job."

Denying Township its inside game, Catholic dared the Streaks to beat them from the perimeter.

Stoltz drained three treys, all in a first half which featured six lead changes before Catholic claimed a 24-22 advantage at the break.

But Township as a team went 3 of 20 from beyond the arc.

"They packed it in and the 3-pointers were wide open," Kreider said. "We just didn't make any."

Catholic, meanwhile, hit 6 of 15 threes, Rivera and Rowe combining for four against their Township friends.

"I'm from Township," said Rowe. "Cory Stoltz was my best friend growing up. "

He smiled and shook his head.

"We just beat a lot of my friends."

 egruver@lnpnews.com