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Prepping for Preps '16-17: Mastery Charter North

11/22/2016, 8:30am EST
By Rich Flanagan

Daeqwon Plowden (above) led Mastery Charter North to the PIAA Class AA title game, where they fell short to Aliquippa. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Rich Flanagan (@richflanagan33)
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(Ed. Note: This story is part of CoBL’s “Prepping for Preps” series, which will take a look at many of the top high school programs in the region as part of our 2016-17 season preview coverage. The complete list of schools previewed so far can be found here.)

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Terrance “Nip” Cook said the road to the 2016 PIAA Class AA title game actually began one year prior.

His 2014-15 Mastery Charter North squad had made the state tournament and advanced to the quarterfinals before falling to Loyalsock Township. Cook feels the experience his team gained and the lessons they learned from that run enabled them to come back even more driven in 2015-16.

“We hadn’t had experience going to the third round of the state playoffs before and how it is going deeper into the [tournament.] It was something that our guys were hungry for and they wanted to get back there,” said Cook, now in his 5th season at the intersection of Wayne Avenue and Rittenhouse Street. “That year was bigger for us more so than last year because that year opened our eyes to another atmosphere and our guys had never been to the state playoffs before that.”

The 2015-16 season was culmination of everything his team had learned the year before and having seen and felt what it meant to play deep in the state tournament prepared them for one of the best seasons in school history. Mastery Charter North (27-4) stormed through the Philadelphia Public League “C” Division, going a perfect 13-0 but fell in the PL semifinals to Del-Val Charter.

Another postseason loss came in the District 12 Class AA championship game as they fell to Conwell-Egan. After a strong regular season, Mastery North stumbled early in the postseason but the Class AA tournament was where they made their mark. They made it back to the quarterfinals where they defeated Trinity High School then grinded out a tough semifinal victory over Camp Hill to advance to the program’s first state title game appearance.

Mastery North fell to Aliquippa, 68-49, but the season was already a success. Senior Daeqwon Plowden, who had 24 points and 11 rebounds in the title game, described what that run to the title game was like for the team.

“It was amazing to make it there and get that type of experience. It was something that we worked for throughout the whole year,” he said. “We established ourselves and we’ve become more prepared as a team from that experience.”

The Bowling Green commit and Public League ‘C’ Division player of the year returns for his final year, but he’ll be without a number of instrumental teammates from last season. Gone are Rodney Ross (Central Pennsylvania College), Benford Jones (University of Pittsburgh Titusville), Asa Kitchen and Andre Allen. While they all graduated and moved on, they helped shape the Mastery North program into what it is now. With the loss of several mainstays from years past, Cook will be looking to the 6-foot-5, 220-pound Plowden (15.0 ppg) to take on an even larger role.

“[He’s going to] provide more leadership [particularly] for the younger guys underneath him,” Cook said. “He’s more vocal than he was last year and the guys are buying into the progress he’s made. They see the door is open and they want to walk through it.”


Senior guard Eli Alvin (above) is a third-year starter for Mastery North. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Plowden will have some help shouldering the load from fellow senior Eli Alvin. The 5-10, 160-pound First Team All-Public League ‘C’ Division point guard scored 20 points in the team’s second round state playoff victory over Danville and six in the title game. Alvin has been an integral part of Mastery North’s recent success and Cook feels he’s more than capable of being a leader alongside Plowden.

“This year, we’re depending a lot of him and [Plowden] to be leaders and keep everybody focused,” Cook said. “The players buy in a lot more when they hear that from their peers and see how focused their peers are. [They will] keep everybody on track in the classroom and on the court as well.”

Alvin understands his role and knows it will be his job to facilitate the offense first then allow the game to come to him from there.

“As far as me being the point guard, there’s a lot of pressure on me. I just want to be the floor general and know when it’s appropriate to do certain things,” Alvin said.

Plowden and Alvin will be looked upon to provide scoring and allow Mastery North to get their transition offense back to where it was a season ago. While a wealth of seniors are gone, a crop of new role players is ready to step in and help the team build upon its recent success. Harold Daly, a 6-1 junior wing, “runs the floor like a deer” and is an “undersized player who defends players three or four inches taller than him,” according to Cook. Daly scored ten points against Danville and is a player Cook has “tremendous hope for.”

Another player who will have an expanded role is 6-3 junior Rahmir Moore, the younger brother of former Temple standout Ramone Moore and brother-in-law of former Villanova/current Toronto Raptors guard Kyle Lowry. A starter last season, Moore, who also had 10 points versus Danville, “has tremendous upside” and “can definitely be a Division 1 recruit once he’s able to get out there and showcase what he can do,” as Cook describes it. Cook says he’s “going to play big minutes for us this year.”

The player Cook sees as the “overall best talent” is 6-2 sophomore combo guard Jamir Reed. Cook said Reed is a “tremendous shooter” and “he and Moore will be the next two who can potentially play Division 1 ball.” Look for Moore and Reed to help ease the scoring load of Plowden and Alvin quite often this year.

A number of upperclassmen will have a major impact on how Mastery North performs this season. Junior combo guard Rodney Fields, a transfer from New Media Technology Charter (Pa.), is “going to be able to jump right in and play for us” and “be one of our two starting guards,” according to Cook. Backup point guard Eric Spann, a senior, is “a creator, understands the system, and his IQ is unbelievable,” Cook says.

While Plowden is the tallest player on Mastery North’s roster, 6-4 senior forward Jalen Catlett is “making progress and getting better as we go along” as well as “working on his aggressiveness,” as Cook described. Look for Catlett to play more against bigger teams, especially now that Mastery North has moved up to the Public League’s B Division this season.

Moving up to the ‘B’ Division won’t be an easy task for Mastery North taking on bigger teams such as Frankford and its schedule also includes games against Simon Gratz, Boys’ Latin, Abington Friends, La Salle HS and Chester. Even with a tougher schedule, Plowden feels his team has another state title run in them as long as each guy plays his role.

“Everybody comes in, plays hard and knows their role. I think having everybody know their role will be very important because everybody plays an important role in what we’re doing and not be something that they’re not,” Plowden said.

Mastery North is no longer an afterthought in the Public League and Alvin wants to let opposing teams in the league know last season was not a fluke.

“Last year, we made a big statement and opened up the eyes of some of the other teams [in the Public League] A and B Division,” Alvin said. “Basically, our goal is to improve because [those teams] probably think that our success from last year was just a blob.”

Cook has had a lot of success in the state tournament while at the helm of Mastery North but knows this season has a different feel to it with a different set of expectations. He’s still going to approach it the same way he does every season and knows his players will do the same.

“This season is about approaching it the same [as last] by taking it one game at a time and playing every game as if it’s our last,” Cook said. “We need to take every opponent seriously and not look past their record from last year. We respect our opponent enough to not look past them.”


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