City of Basketball Love

Rich Flanagan (@RichFlanagan33)
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It wasn’t a bad first half in the scoring column for Eric Dixon but that was not what frustrated himself and his coaching staff.

The Abington sophomore had a game-high 11 points but North Penn held a 30-25 advantage at the break. The Ghosts were not closing out on the Knights' shooters or controlling the glass in the manner in which they had been accustomed to for much of the season. The halftime discussion was straight forward and Dixon knew exactly what was expected of him.

“It was all the intensity. The coaches were straight up with us at halftime. They said we weren’t playing hard enough,” Dixon said. “In the first half, I was getting to my spots but shots weren’t falling. I got a little bit of anger in me. I came out and played a harder than in the first half.”

Dixon scored 13 of his team’s 22 points in the third quarter and finished with 31 to lead the Ghosts to a 66-45 victory over the Knights in the Suburban One League semifinals at Bensalem High School. Dixon went on two separate scoring spurts in that quarter: scoring six straight midway through then later scoring seven consecutive including a three-pointers to push his team’s lead to 47-36 to end the quarter.

He was beating the North Penn zone in a variety of ways: drop steps which pinned defenders on his back, twice knocking down jumpers from the outside and finally scoring on straight drives to the rim after the Knights had to respect his perimeter shooting. He also tallied eight of the Ghosts’ 25 rebounds. Abington head coach Charles Grasty said the difference in the game was Dixon’s tenacity at the offensive end and how he played angry by demanding the ball during his team’s second-half comeback.

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“He was a little disappointed with himself [in the first half.] He missed a couple of slides and [defensive] rotations. We got on him a little defensively at halftime and he took it. He said, ‘I got you, coach.’ He played with a chip on his shoulder and this is the type of game we expect from him.”

The Knights’ big men were unable to match Dixon’s play in that second half. Both Ricky Johns (nine points, five rebounds) and David Guillani (10 and six) picked up their fourth fouls in that third quarter, respectively. North Penn went back focusing their offense around the perimeter but their only three-point basket in the second half came from Guillani which gave them a 36-30 lead with 2:36 left in third, right before Dixon went on his run of six straight points.

North Penn (18-5) guard Reece Udinski was the sparkplug of the offense in the first half (8 points) but he only attempted one shot after the intermission and was held scoreless. AJ Mitchell and Noah Kwortnik each hit a three-pointer in the first half but both were nonfactors in the second half. Knights head coach John Conrad felt his team went away from the gameplan and what gave them the lead over Abington (19-4) in the first two quarters.

“We were just trying to get back to what we were doing in the first half with quality possessions and doing a better job getting stops defensively. They made some adjustments with our zone and I give them a lot of credit,” Conrad said.

Conrad also couldn’t deny Dixon had his way in that second half with Johns and Guillani out of the game.

“He’s the real deal. I don’t know what you can do. You can only try and contain him. I thought our kids did a nice job, at first,” Conrad said. “I don’t know if you can underestimate having Ricky and David on the bench. They’re two of our better rebounders. They’re strong, physical and relentless.”

The Ghosts looked to Dixon consistently in that second half but when the defense collapsed on him he was able to find guards Robbie Heath, who had 14 points and four rebounds, as well as Lucas Monroe and Darious Brown, both of whom had seven points apiece. Brown hit a three off of a Dixon kickout early in the third, and later Monroe scored on a decisive drive to the rim which pushed the Ghosts’ lead to 40-36, just before Dixon scored his seven straight points.

Heath’s bucket off of a Brown miss made the game 63-43 with 1:52 to play to put the finishing touches on a commanding victory for Grasty’s team, which played off of Dixon and adjusted when North Penn chose to double-team the sophomore forward.

“We thought our size would hurt them. We started to dump it down to Eric then when they were collapsing we kicked it out to a couple of our shooters,” Grasty said. “We always want to play inside out; that’s the makeup of this team. We have good guards who will feed off of Eric.”

This may not be the last time they will match up, as both are top-eight seeds in the District 1 Class 6A playoffs, which begin Friday. Abington and North Penn will each have an opening round bye and play their first game on Tuesday, Feb. 21 against opponents TBD.