City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Plymouth-Whitemarsh's undefeated start to the season came to an end on Tuesday at the hands of an Upper Merion squad that it had beaten by 31 earlier in the year.

Backed by 17 points from junior forward Matt Faw and some clutch foul-shooting by fellow junior Aiden Newell, the Vikings pulled away late for a 57-43 win over the Colonials in a Suburban One surprise.

“Just an awesome win,” Upper Merion head coach Jason Quenzer said over the phone. “It was no real special game plan, we’ve played P-W now here for the third year and having the same core of guys, so we knew what to expect from them in terms of what they like to do, we just preached to take care of the ball and make sure that we take our game.”

Upper Merion (10-5, 5-4 SOL) led 19-10 after one quarter thanks to eight early points from Faw, but it was tied 26-26 at halftime and was 39-38 in favor of P-W going into the final quarter.

But when the Colonials (15-1, 8-1) got into foul trouble, Newell--a 5-9 point guard--stepped to the line and made all 10 of his foul shots in the final quarter, an eight minutes in which the Vikings were 15-of-16 from the charity stripe.

As a team, Upper Merion was 23-of-24 on its foul shots.

“That helps you win a ball game or two,” Quenzer quipped.

Senior forward Mike Lotito led P-W with 16 points, while Rider commit Xzavier Malone had 11 as he struggled with fouls.

The win continues a nice turnaround for Upper Merion, which started off the year with a 4-4 record, including 2-3 in SOL-American play. Since losing to Upper Dublin on Jan. 5, they’re 5-1 overall, with a 3-1 record in league play to move into third place in the conference behind P-W and Cheltenham.

Their only loss in that span was at Cheltenham, now ranked No. 10 in PIAA’s AAAA classification in the latest CoBL rankings, on a last-second shot.

“I think we’re getting used to the pressure a lot, our defense was great today,” Faw said. “We competed with Cheltenham last week, we lost by two on a buzzer-beater...it’s a good sign that we’re hanging with some of the best teams in the state.”

The in-season turnaround is representative of a larger one the Vikings are undergoing of late.

Last season, with Newell, Faw and fellow junior Ethan Miller (10 pts vs. P-W) still forming the core of the team, Upper Merion was just 2-17 overall, including 2-11 in SOL play.

Now, they're making a solid run at a spot in the District playoffs.

“It’s little by little, you take your moral victories and we took plenty of those in the past few years, where we said ‘we’re capable of X, we’re capable of Y’ where we could go out and compete with those guys,” Quenzer said. “But it never came to fruition like tonight where the confidence just over-boiled and we were able to get the win.”