City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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ROSEMONT — K’Mari Smith stepped to the foul line with three seconds left and the District 1 4A championship on the line, the crowd at Harriton High School holding its breath. The Collegium Charter sophomore wing had missed his previous three attempts from the line, none of which had the pressure on his shoulders, his Cougars clinging to a two-point lead against defending champ Pope John Paul II.

“I was a little nervous,” Collegium coach Markel Jones admitted, “but also he works tremendously. I know if he can just get out of his own head, he’ll be able to make those shots. 

“I wanted that game to be over. But I had confidence in him, I knew he’d knock them down.”

Smith stepped up like he’d been making them all day, calmly knocking down the first, and then the second. One full-court heave by Pope John Paul II later, and the Cougars poured onto the court, letting all the emotions flow out, the scoreboard reading 62-58 in their favor. 

“I missed the last two so I know I had to get it right and make the next two, finally end the game,” Smith said. “It was really great, felt real good, celebrating with my teammates.”

“Once Pope John Paul threw up that shot and we won — I don’t know, man,” junior Duce Jackson said. “It’s an unreal moment. Unreal.”

The final of a district championship tripleheader at Harriton lived up to the title game atmosphere, a close-fought contest between two squads that both deserved to come out with a win at the end of the afternoon. 

Collegium Charter, the No. 1 seed in the district’s four-team bracket, rolled into Harriton with a 25-2 record and a Bicentennial Athletic League championship, the best season the program’s had since joining the PIAA midway through the previous decade. The Cougars started off in the 1A and 2A classification, but have grown into a 4A school, and were playing in that bracket for the first time after taking last season off due to the pandemic.

Pope John Paul II (14-8), which won the district title each of the last two years, had the experience, with four seniors in the starting lineup, compared to the four juniors and one sophomore in Collegium’s opening five. That included a trio of guards who’d been there before in JP Baron, Jaden Workman and Kevin Green.

But the Cougars had a significant size and length advantage on the Golden Panthers, with 6-foot-8 Travon Mack and the 6-6 Jackson going up against a PJP lineup that didn’t start anyone taller than the 6-2 Baron.

Those two elements canceled each other out for much of the game. PJP led by one after one quarter and Collegium by four at halftime, then carried that momentum into the second half. Jackson scored 10 of his 22 points in the third quarter as Collegium opened up a lead as big as 11, but Pope John Paul II closed to within 45-43 entering the fourth, junior guard Trey Rogers (7 points, 4 steals) providing a spark in the frame. 

The fourth quarter saw Collegium holding a slim edge almost the entire way through. Smith had a couple key plays down the stretch, getting his own miss and popping it back in to put Collegium up 57-54 with 2:20 left, and came up with a steal-and-layup to make it 59-56 with 1:15 remaining. 

PJP II had one final chance to tie or take the lead after Mack split a pair from the line with 12 seconds left, but turned it over with 4.5 seconds remaining, leading to Smith’s clinching foul shots.

Collegium Charter celebrates its 2022 District 1 Class 4A championship. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

“It just shows us that we just fought back, had heart,” Smith said. “They’re a great team, we were just fighting back and it just came out to the end and we brought it out.”

“We didn’t play last year, so this is two years in the making,” Jones said. “Working for something that’s so far ahead in the future is hard sometimes, but they got it done.”

Workman was terrific for PJP II, scoring 27 points on 8-of-14 shooting, going 11-of-11 from the foul line, including 5-of-5 in the fourth quarter. The 6-1 guard’s 3-point play with 4:13 left gave PJP II its only lead of the fourth quarter, 54-53, and his final points with 2:06 left made it a one-point game once again.

Jackson, a versatile wing forward, was tasked with guarding Baron, PJP’s leading scorer, who still found his way to 22 points on the evening, though Jackson certainly made him work hard to get there. Jackson finished with 22 points of his own, going a perfect 5-of-5 from the floor and 6-of-6 from the foul line in the second half.

Collegium’s typical leading scorer, junior guard Dinero Washington, scored 16 of his 20 in the first half, knifing to the hoop at will while also knocking down a couple jumpers.

“I’ve had Nero since he was a freshman, he’s always been my go-to guy,” Jones said. “Even when everybody else is struggling, he would make sure to keep us in the game — that’s just Nero, he does what it takes to win.”

In the state tournament, Collegium Charter will face off against the third seed out of District 3, though they won’t know until Wednesday night who they play. With six days after that before their first-round game on March 8, the Cougars will have plenty of time to rest up and then prepare for their first state tournament appearance. 

“Our coaching staff, we’ll prepare, we’ll get a game plan ready,” Jones said. “We’ll get some games to rest our bodies, the Bicentennial tournament was long, so we’ve played a lot of games these last couple weeks. We know we’re going to face somebody tough.”

By Quarter
Collegium Charter:  11  |  17  |  17  |  17  ||  62
Pope John Paul II:  12  |  12  |  19  |  15  ||  58

Shooting
Collegium Charter: 20-49 FG (3-16 3PT), 19-25 FT
Pope John Paul II: 18-45 FG (1-12 3PT), 21-22 FT

Scoring
Collegium Charter: Duce Jackson 22, Dinero Washington 20, K’Mari Smith 11, Alyjah Warren 5, Emmet Williams 2, Travon Mack 1, Amon Fowlkes 1

Pope John Paul II: Jaden Workman 27, JP Baron 22, Trey Rogers 7, Kevin Green 2