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Dixon, Abington pull away from Cheltenham in rivalry win

01/20/2018, 9:30pm EST
By Ari Glazier

Eric Dixon (above) bounced back from two missed foul shots in last year's Cheltenham/Abington game to lead the Ghosts to a win this time around. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Ari Glazier (@AriGlazier)
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Abington High’s Eric Dixon was greeted with chants of “choker” from the Cheltenham student section just about every time he stepped to the line in the latest chapter in the rivalry between the neighboring districts on Saturday afternoon. While the game was played in Abington’s gym, there were nearly as many spectators from Cheltenham, and they made their presence known.

Dixon is no stranger to the chant. In last year’s Abington-Cheltenham matchup, he missed two free throws late in a tight game that Cheltenham went on to win. The crowd adapted the “choker” mantra for Dixon then, and brought it back in full force this time around.

But for the Abington star, there would be no choking this time around.

Dixon went 10-of-11 from the line, a big part of his 31-point, 10-rebound effort in Abington’s 74-54 win. It was his seventh double-double of the season.

“It definitely feels good, we’ve been talking trash all week, but it’s all part of it,” said Dixon, a high-major recruit who recently added a Villanova offer to those from Temple, UConn, OK State, Georgetown and more. “I know who I am as a player, I know they they know who I am. I respect it, I play for it. Jut lock in and win the game.”

While Cheltenham lost its biggest offensive playmaker Jack Clark, potentially for the season (knee injury) last Tuesday in an overtime win against Upper Dublin, it still has plenty of weapons, like senior point guard Ahmad Bickley, 6-6 junior center Kyin Healey, and sophomore guard Zahree Harrison.

Abington got off to a 10-5 start, and led 18-12 after a quarter. The Panthers went into the second quarter with guns blazing. The teams traded buckets for all eight minutes of the action-packed period, and behind nine from Bickley, Cheltenham managed to tie the game at 37 at the half.

“They’re good; they go on really nice runs; they get after it, they’re scrappy, and they made shots. That second quarter they made a ton of shots,” Abington head coach Charles Grasty said.  “I didn’t go down there and yell and scream and find out what we were doing wrong, I just said ‘let’s buckle down, and see if we can make them continue to make those kind of shots.’”

The second half was all Ghosts.

Dixon scored the first 10 points for Abington, to put the home team up 47-43. Dixon’s domination throughout much of the game forced multiple Cheltenham players into foul trouble. By the end of the third Healey had fouled out, and the Panthers lost their leading scorer in Bickley early in the fourth.

“They’re an aggressive team against anybody, especially against us,” Dixon said. “They’re gonna be a little ramped up, so they’re be aggressive, they’re gonna bite on pum fakes, reach, stuff like that. So we just wanted to try and get to the rim and make them foul us.”

The foul-outs seemed to take the air out of Cheltenham, as Abington dominated the entirety of the fourth.

“I thought our length hurt them in the second half, our effort-- we stepped up in the third quarter-- our effort picked up,” Grasy said. “We were able to get stops and scores, we held them to 17 in the second half, that’s pretty impressive for those guys... We didn’t change up anything  schematically, we just stepped it up effort wise.

Dixon wasn’t the only Ghost to put up big numbers. Senior guard Robbie Heath had great success driving to the basket, putting up 21 points as well as seven rebounds. Junior wing Lucas Monroe was also a big contributor in multiple categories, putting up 13 points, five assists and seven rebounds.

While the Cheltenham-Abington game is penciled in every year as one of the biggest for both programs, Grasty emphasized that it’s “just another game on the schedule” for the Ghosts, who have aspiration of district and state championships this year. Still, for players who are a five-minute car ride away from their opponents, the pressure to deliver on Saturday was real.

“We think about it all week.” Dixon said. “Last night, got to make sure we go to bed, don’t go out, try not to look at your phone so much even though they’re talking to you. We just had to lock in and be a little bit more focused than usual.

“You go to these games as a youngin’ and you imagine playing playing in these games,” he added.

The Cheltenham-Abington rivalry in all sports begin in 1915, and isn’t going anywhere. Abington is set to join the SOL American division next year, which means they will play each other twice a year in a home-away split.

“We’ve been playing for 95 years,” said Grasty. “They’re about three miles down the road, they bring their fans, we bring our fans, they have their neighborhoods, we have our neighborhoods. We get together in every sport, we get together and we want to beat each other. That’s just the way it is, Abington-Cheltenham’s been like that for a long time.”

Abington, who advanced to 8-2 on the year, and are 6-0 in the SOL National, continue their campaign for a sixth straight league title on Wednesday against Pennsbury. Cheltenham, which dropped to 10-5 on the year (6-1 SOL American) will continue on Tuesday against Springfield (Montco.).


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