KARNS CITY, Pa. (EYT/D9) — With a swat of his right or left hand, Micah Rupp can change a game.
The junior on the Karns City boys basketball team is tall at 6-foot-4 and has the wingspan of bald eagle. He has an instinct for blocking shots and gobbling up rebounds.
He also has the quick hands of a prize fighter, jabbing at the basketball to get steals.
Rupp can wreck an offense. Just ask Coudersport.
He terrorized the Falcons Wednesday night in the first round of the District 9 Class 2A playoffs with five blocked shots, 12 rebounds and 14 points as the Gremlins rolled to a 58-17 victory at home.
“It brings a lot of energy to everybody,” Rupp said of when he can get up and swat away a shot attempt. “It gets the crowd going. It’s an instinct. See ball, get ball, I guess.”
His teammate, sophomore Luke Cramer, said he’s glad he doesn’t have to go up against Rupp.
“Yeah,” Cramer said, smiling. “I’ll pass on that.”
Often, Cramer and his teammates will look on in awe of what Rupp can do defensively on the basketball court.
When Micah is doing Micah things, no shot it safe. No Basket is guaranteed.
“Whenever we see someone going in and he’s trailing, we just sit back and watch and wait and see what happens,” Cramer said. “It’s fun to watch.”
Karns City coach Zach Kepple has raved about Rupp’s defense all year. Sometimes, he has to rein Rupp in a bit to keep his star out of foul trouble, but he unleashed his defensive weapon on Coudersport.
“There’s some games we have to tell him to be a little cautious,” Kepple said. “But he just went after things tonight. Any time he’s in that mindset that he’s just going to block everything, it’s trouble because he’s tall and he can jump and he has those long arms. He’s a problem for offenses, especially ones that thrive on getting into the paint.”
Rupp scored eight of his points in the first quarter as Karns City started off strong. The Gremlins led 7-0 and closed the quarter on a 9-0 run to go up 16-2.
By halftime, Karns City had build a 34-7 advantage. The lead swelled to 44-7 three minutes into the second half.
“That was one of our keys to the game — we needed to start strong,” Kepple said. “That’s one of the big weaknesses we’ve had this year. We start slow, dig ourselves a hole and then fight back.”
Karns City also kept its foot on the gas, something Kepple wanted to see his team do.
Cramer added 13 points and Luke Garing 11 for the Gremlins, who also got seven points from Jacob Callihan off the bench.
Cramer also looked his best since missing several weeks with a right ankle injury.
“It was tough (being out),” Cramer said. “I had to get back into the flow of things. I definitely lost a little height on my jumps and couldn’t cut like I wanted to on my right ankle.”
Cramer hit two 3-pointers in the first quarter. He also slashed to the hoop, got tough rebounds.
Cramer is something of an X-factor for the Gremlins because of his ability to do anything on the court for a big guy — Cramer is 6-2 and built like a fullback, which he played on the Karns City football team.
“He’s a guy who’s hard to guard when he’s healthy,” Kepple said. “He can shoot the mid-range jumper and he can shoot 3s like he did tonight. He can also get to the basket, so that’s a tough guy to defend. When he’s kind of cruising and feeling good, that’s another dimension to our offense.”
Karns City is hoping the strong all-around play they displayed against Coudersport carries over to the semifinals against Ridgway Tuesday at a site and time to be determined.
The Gremlins bounced back from a disappointing one-point setback to North Clarion in the KSAC semifinals last week to put together one of their best all-around games of the season.
“We were chomping at the bit to get back after that,” Cramer said. “That was a tough loss. I think it motivated everybody to try to work harder, get better.”
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