City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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It was the most dominant stretch of Robbie Heath’s basketball career.

In the first half of the Suburban One League championship game, the Abington junior almost single-handedly kept his team afloat, scoring 22 points in the game’s opening 16 minutes. The 6-foot-2 guard slashed his way through the Plymouth-Whitemarsh press almost every time up the court, occasionally dishing off when necessary but mostly taking matters into his own hands.

How good was Heath? So good, Ghosts coach Charles Grasty didn’t even realize one of his other stars, sophomore forward Eric Dixon, was having an uncharacteristically quiet first half with just two points.

“Believe it or not, I kind of forgot about him -- Robbie was playing so well, it was just like let’s keep feeding Robbie,” Grasty said, then clarified himself. “Not that we just forget about one of our players, but it was let’s just keep feeding the hot hand.”

In the second half, Dixon showed up, and that was too much for the Colonials to handle.

A dominant middle two quarters powered the way as Abington won its second SOL title in three years, taking home a 70-66 win at Souderton Area High School.

Two years ago, Grasty guided the Ghosts to the inaugural league championship tournament title, and they followed it up by winning the District 1 AAAA tournament behind current Division II standouts Matt Penecale (West Chester) and Amir Hinton (Lock Haven)

As the No. 3 seed in the brand-new District 1 6A tournament beginning Friday -- Abington has a bye through to next Tuesday’s second round -- they’ll be one of the favorites to win it all again.

“We just think it’s about momentum, just momentum,” the seventh-year head coach and former Abington standout said. “We want to keep going, keep it going.

“They’d rather play games than practice, so I just told the guys ‘listen, it’s going to be a long week of practice if we don’t get to the championship,’” Grasty continued. “‘If we get to the championship, we’ve got a fun night on Monday night.’”

It wasn’t fun at first for Abington (20-4), which found itself down 18-12 after one quarter. The Ghosts were having trouble containing P-W’s 7-foot sophomore, Naheem McLeod, who scored eight points on 4-of-4 shooting in the opening quarter alone.

The second quarter, however, belonged entirely to Heath.

The Australia native, whose father Robert “Tiger” Heath played at Abington in the 1980s before moving Down Under to raise his family, played like a cat on the hunt, and his target was hovering 10 feet over the baseline.

Taking advance of a Colonials squad that presses 94-feet, the Ghosts’ 3-guard lineup of Heath, senior Rob Young and sophomore Lucas Monroe had no problem breaking through, getting the ball to Heath around the halfcourt line, where all he had to do was turn and attack.

“I didn’t believe they had anyone to guard me, so I just went past them and made plays,” he said.

The decisive move came in the final three minutes of the first half, when Abington was finally able to flip a several-point deficit into a four-point advantage at halftime.

Heath really got the Abington crowd into the game with a 3-point play that finally put the Ghosts in front, a tough drive between two P-W defenders with a kiss off the glass before the ball dropped through the hoop.

“He carried us,” Dixon said. “When Robbie drove the middle, he got that and-one layup, it felt like a good time to take over and take momentum.”

Dixon made sure all the momentum stayed on Abington’s side in the third quarter.

The 6-foot-8, 260-pound lefty sophomore went to work in the post, coming up with 10 points alone during the third quarter, which saw the Ghost expand the lead from 32-28 at the break to 52-39 entering the fourth quarter. He added six more in the fourth quarter, finishing with 18 points and nine rebounds.

That came after a first half where he was all but invisible, picking up two early fouls and spending a good deal of time on the bench.

“I didn’t come prepared, I didn’t stretch, I didn’t get tape, I was late to the bus, I didn’t get a good warm-up in, I didn’t sweat,” he said. “The second half...I stretched, did all my pre-game rituals, just went out there like it was a new game.”

Dixon was half of an interior Abington duo that got stronger and stronger as the game went on; senior forward Joe O'Brien (6-8, 250) had 10 boards and five blocks to go along with six points.

Heath finished with a game-high 30 points, adding in four throws in the final few minutes to help seal the win.

“I had to step it up, the past couple of games I’ve been kind of disappointed in myself,” he said, “but by me scoring big and making plays for my teammates, and us winning the game, I’ve got my confidence back.”

Confidence is key for Heath, who’s entering a crucial eight months in his recruiting; after spending each of the last two offseasons back home, this year he’ll be playing on the summer circuit in front of college coaches for the first time with a program still to be determined.

“I kind of regret going back to Australia last year, I should have played AAU last year,” he admitted, “but me not going back to Australia this year, that’s really going to help me.”

McLeod finished with 17 points for Plymouth-Whitemarsh, but only had two after halftime. Junior guards Ahmad Williams added 14 and Ish Horn 10 for the Colonials (20-4), who are without junior Ahmin Williams, Ahmad’s brother, out with a foot injury.

Like Abington, P-W has some time to its next game, as the No. 2 seed in the District 1 6A playoffs. After an eight-day layoff, P-W gets either Council Rock South (13-9) or Central Bucks East (12-10) in the second round next Tuesday.

“What a great opportunity to learn, I’ve got to be five percent better in moments,” Donofrio said. “What this reminds me of was our 2009 team that had C.J. Aiken as a junior, Jaylen Bond as a junior and a lot of juniors...we lost 8-9 games that year but we ended up in the state semi-finals, because they learned from every loss. [It] was fascinating, now this team needs to take on that same kind of challenge.”