City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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The last time Abington was in the District 1 semifinals, Rob Young got a nice view of the Ghosts’ championship run, from the bench.

Two years later the bench has become a foreign land for the senior guard.

And though Young isn’t often the leading scorer on a talented squad for head coach Charles Grasty, there’s a reason he’s their captain.

With Abington back in the district semifinals at Temple University’s Liacouras Center, Grasty needed Young to keep the ship steady. He did just that, playing the perfect supporting role as sophomore Eric Dixon led the charge offensively in a 71-67 win over No. 2 seed Plymouth-Whitemarsh on Tuesday evening in the first of two District 1 6A semifinals.

The Ghosts (23-4), seeded third in the 24-team tournament, will take on Coatesville in Saturday’s championship game at Villanova, which is scheduled for an 8 PM tip.

Against a Colonials’ defense designed to rush teams out of their element, Young made sure his team never got sped up. Young only chipped six points on a team with three double-digit scorers, but the 5-foot-10 guard added seven rebounds, six assists and three steals to the winning effort.

“I just take it slow, and then don’t try to do too much on the court but also get my teammates involved in the game,” he said. “Make sure they stay on top of their stuff, make sure they don’t get too much out of control.”

“He’s our point guard, he’s our leader,” Grasty said. “If you see he runs over after every dead ball, we have a conversation, he did that on his own. He just comes over, he wants to keep the team pretty calm, he has a really cool demeanor and he just tries to have that rub off on the other guys.”

Young is one of two players remaining from Abington’s 2015 District 1 AAAA championship -- the state's largest classification went from AAAA to 6A this offseason -- along with junior guard Robbie Heath.

Heath was a 5-foot-9 freshman who started all postseason long for the Ghosts that time around, serving as little more than 3-point specialist alongside talented seniors Matt Penecale and Amir Hinton. Now standing 6-2, the Australia native and son of former Abington standout Robert “Tiger” Heath is one of the Ghosts’ featured offensive players, scoring 11 of his 15 points in the second half of Tuesday’s win.

Instead of being wide-eyed playing in an arena that seats upwards of 10,000 people -- about 3,000 fans, including quite a sizeable Abington contingent, rocked the lower bowl for this one -- Heath found himself giving advice to the underclassmen in the days leading up to the most important game of the year thus far.

“It’s just another game but enjoy the moment, it’s a bigger stage but it’s just another game,” he said. “The rings are 10 feet (high), so you just come out here and be ready to play.”

Last year, Abington lost in the first round of the district playoffs to Upper Dublin, ending its season before the Ghosts even had a chance to qualify for states.

Now they're back in the district championship game for the second time in three years after their fourth semifinal appearance in the last six seasons under Grasty.

Abington controlled the second and third quarters, as well as the first few minutes of the fourth, going up as many as 20 in the early part of the final period.

Plymouth-Whitemarsh found some energy in the final three minutes to close the gap to its final margin, but the outcome was never really in doubt.

Dixon, who had a quiet first half in the teams’ meeting two weeks ago in the Surburban One League championship game, wasted no time getting himself going the second time around.

The 6-foot-7 big man poured in 20 first-half points, 13 of which came on a perfect 5-for-5 shooting in the second quarter where Abington first took its commanding lead. He finished with 31 points to go along with 10 rebounds, hitting three 3-pointers as part of an impressive all-around effort for one of the area’s brightest young talents.

“He’s feeling it and he had it going,” Grasty said. “As a basketball coach but a fan, it’s pretty impressive to watch.”

While Dixon was Abington’s primary source of offense it in the first half, his teammates began to help the Division I target carry the load in the second half.

After a quiet first half where he scored just four points, Heath began to heat up on his way to finishing with 15 points. Another big offensive night came from senior big man Joseph O’Brien, who cashed in for 13 points and while also grabbing nine rebounds and helping Abington control the glass for the entirety of the contest.

Plymouth-Whitemarsh was led by 20 points from Ish Horn, who moved into the starting lineup last month after junior Ahmin Williams broke his foot. Williams’ twin brother Ahmad Williams had 15 points though he took 27 shots to get there; senior Matt Walker added 14 points on four 3-pointers.

The Colonials (21-5) trailed by two after the first quarter but watched that gap expand to 15 by the half, frustrated by an Abington zone that limited them to 8-of-28 shooting in the opening 16 minutes.

Sophomore Naheem McLeod, a 7-footer who had 17 points in the team’s first meeting, was limited to five points and three boards this time around.

“They do a pretty good job of some high ball screens and it’s kind of bunched up in there at the foul line, so instead of letting them get it bunched up and then the shooter kid will step back and hits a 3 or the big kid will roll to the basket, we were like let’s just see if they can make some shots here,” Grasty said. “It was more like a game-time decision, let’s throw some zone at them, because we did start off in man, and we wanted to see if their shooters can make some shots with our length, because we’re still pretty long. Just threw it at them, and it was pretty helpful.”