City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
—

WYNCOTE — Playing defense at Cheltenham isn't optional.

Rasheem Dearry will admit he's probably not going to love playing defense any time soon, but the Panthers senior sure knows he'd better be giving his all on that end when he's on the floor. He's not the only one on the team who isn't enamored with defense, but it's pretty hard to pick Dearry or any of the others out when they're flying around the floor tipping passes, trapping dribblers, creating steals and putting fear into opponents.

Dearry provided an early offensive punch while the Panthers defense took care of things after halftime as No. 3 Cheltenham moved past SOL rival No. 22 Plymouth Whitemarsh 52-40 in Friday night's quarterfinals.

"I'm not going to lie, a lot of us don't like to play defense, but we have to," Dearry said. "The energy from the crowd and even our teammates and our coaches, when we hear them chanting 'de-fense' on the side, it gets our adrenaline up and makes us want to keep going."

Cheltenham put on a defensive clinic in the third quarter, holding PW to 0-of-7 shooting from the field, forcing five turnovers and out-scoring the visitors 14-4 in the frame to break open what had been a tightly-contested first half. While the Panthers don't have a towering post player to anchor the paint or a lot of height, they have a good cache of rangy athletes with good instincts that probably most importantly work together well.

Dearry, Elias Walker, Nasir Edens, Brandon Bush and sixth man Justin Savage are all around the same height, they can cover a lot of court in a hurry and counter any opposing advantage with a lot of intensity and hustle. Savage, for example, drew two charges on Friday while Walker collected three steals to lead six Panthers who poked away at least one turnover of their own.

"We were trying to make sure we closed out possession with rebounds, we didn't want to give them any open shots, we wanted them all to be contested," Panthers coach Patrick Fleury said. "The biggest thing for us defensively is communicating and being on a line. When the ball moves, everybody moves before the catch so they're there before the catch. They executed that well, the backside of our defense was vocal and they were the safeties for us and helped a lot."

The Colonials, who lost to Cheltenham on Jan. 7 during SOL crossover play, came out fired up off back-to-back upsets to start the district tournament and led 7-3 midway through the opening frame. It wasn't the start the Panthers envisioned, but Dearry has also come to recognize moments like that are where he needs to step up.

So, he did, scoring eight straight points capped by 3-pointers on consecutive possessions that put the Panthers in front 11-7 for a lead they would hold the rest of the night. Dearry, who led Cheltenham with 15 points, also hit a timely three late in the second quarter to end a PW run and give his team some breathing room going to the break after a back-and-forth half.

"I was just doing my part, doing what I could do to help the team whether it was scoring, playing defense, rebounding, offensive rebounds, just keeping us together," Dearry said. "When somebody misses a shot and they get frustrated, it's my job to keep us together."

While he only scored four points after halftime, Dearry was great on the boards with eight of his 11 rebounds coming after intermission. His teammates picked up the scoring slack, with most of that coming as a result of the team's ferocious, flying defense.

Collectively, the Panthers were terrific on defense. They held talented PW point guard Jaden Colzie scoreless while Qudire Bennett, the catalyst in the Colonials' postseason push, was held to seven before getting three baskets in the final four minutes of the game to finish with 13 points.

"The third quarter defensively, the group had an early run and the guys were able to catapult that into a lot of great plays and great basketball," Fleury said. "Colzie's a good player and Bennett is a good player, as a team they had 40, which is under their average so we accomplished our goal and moving forward, I'm very proud of our guys."

A steal and slam by Bush gave Cheltenham a 43-29 lead with five minutes to play, but the Panthers got a little sloppy in giving up a 9-2 run immediately after and Dearry noted that's something they can't afford to do when they don't have the luxury of a big lead late.

As a sophomore, Dearry was part of the Panthers team that made its way to Temple and the district title game before their season was cut short without even getting to play a second PIAA tournament game with the outbreak of COVID-19. With the pandemic limiting only district champions to the state tournament last year, the Panthers didn't have a chance to get back thanks to a district quarterfinal loss against Lower Merion despite being the top seed.

Waiting in the wings is LM, with the No. 2 Aces set to meet the Panthers in Tuesday's semifinal round.

"Going into next week, it's definitely going to be a dogfight, we just want to get back," Dearry said. "It's on all our minds right now. We have to be focused for next Tuesday, we know it's an away game, so that crowd's going to be hostile and be loud, so we need to be ready."

There's no secret to what the Panthers will need to get past the Aces, even if it may not be the favorite thing to do on the court for some of them.

"If you don't play defense, you get subbed out of the game," Dearry said. "We're not an offensive team, we're a defensive team. Cheltenham, we want to be known as a defensive team. I think it scares other teams, you watch our film and see us boxing-out aggressively, grabbing boards, blocking shots and getting steals, that's definitely a good thing to have attached to us."

An unfortunate and unnecessary moment marred what was otherwise an intense, spirited and competitive game between two quality teams with less than a minute left in regulation. Cheltenham took a timeout with 46.8 seconds left and as the teams were returning to the floor, a fan seated in the section of stands behind the scorer's table between the team benches directed an obscene comment at Fleury.

Fleury immediately alerted the officials then directed game administrators to the fan, causing a several-minute stoppage before the fan was removed from the building.

"The game is a passionate game and most people love it. The issue from tonight was the level of disrespect which turned what was supposed to be a beautiful match between two highly-touted teams; this is a place where we respect everybody, we don't deal with disrespect because we don't disrespect other people," Fleury said.

By Quarter
Chelt:  16  |  11  |  14  |  11  ||  52
P-W:   12  |  11  |   4   |  13  ||  40

Scorers
C: Rasheem Dearry 15, Josiah Hutson 12, Brandon Bush 12, Elias Walker 8, Nasir Edens 2, Justin Savage 3

PW: Zende Hubbard 16, Qudire Bennett 13, Trey Jones 5, Marshall Baker 4, Taji Hubbard 2