City of Basketball Love

Ryan Coyle (@ryancoyle35)
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Longtime Abington coach Charles Grasty has had his fair share of high-level guards. 

Anthony Lee, Amir Hinton, Matt Penecale, Robbie Heath, and Lucas Monroe are all former standout guards for the Galloping Ghosts. 

The next lead guard to take the reins of the program appears to be junior Jeremiah Lee, the younger brother of former Abington/Kutztown alum Anthony Lee. 

The younger Lee erupted in Friday night's 59-49 victory for Abington (2-3, 2-0). Lee scored 25 points, including 17 points in the second quarter, as part of a 22-point first half for the junior. He knew from the early going he was in position to have a big night. 

“I felt good at the start of this game,” Lee said.” I felt like I was in a good flow and that helped me get going. They were giving me open looks, and I know I can make outside shots, so I just kept shooting and they were falling tonight.”

After shooting 2-for-2 from the field, including a top of the key three-pointer in the first quarter, the Ghosts entered the second quarter with a 11-9 lead. That is when Lee took over, dropping 17 points, hurting Upper Dublin (3-3, 2-1) in a multitude of ways. 

Lee created his own shot off the bounce, got to the rim en route to converting a few layups, drew contact to get to the charity stripe, and showed off his outside shot, cashing in on 3-of-5 three-point attempts during the second frame. 

Grasty has seen in flashes the type of scorer that Lee can be when he gets hot, but hasn’t seen him perform in the fashion he did Friday during his time at the varsity level. 

“I haven’t seen him get hot like that at this level (speaking of 17 points in 2Q),” Grasty said. “But we have seen him get hot before last year a few times. We know he can do that for us, he is a heck of a player. He can really put the ball in the basket and the good thing is he is only a junior, so he is going to continue to get better. Our job is to put him in spots to get shots and let him play.”

Over the progression of his sophomore season last year, the coaching staff saw in flashes the type of player Lee could be. A little encouragement from some of his teammates helped propel those confidence levels for Lee to have a strong finish to last year and use that as momentum to step into the role of ‘the guy’ for Abington this year.

“The older guys believed in him and a few times they had to be like, ‘Let’s go man, you are a sophomore by grade, but this is basketball, it isn’t rocket science, just go play basketball’ and that confidence that he picked up at the end of last year we saw has really carried into this year.” Grasty said.

After his breakout performance in the first half, Upper Dublin made some adjustments in the locker room and made life more difficult for Lee in the second half. For a bulk of the third and fourth quarter in the halfcourt offense, Lee was face guarded by Upper Dublin senior guard D.J. Cerisier, a Division I football prospect. Cerisier held Lee to only three points, allowing only one field goal in the half. 

The Cardinals applied a lot of full court pressure in the second half via a 1-2-2 press that caused some fits for Abington off the initial inbounds pass, but once Abington broke the first trap they often had an odd man break where point guard Damon Rawls was getting into the middle of the floor and setting up teammates for layups or putting them in position to get fouled and go to the line. Grasty knows a point of emphasis for his club has to be taking care of the ball and dealing with pressure that they are sure to see again.

“Absolutely, that is one thing we will emphasize when we get in the gym tomorrow (turnovers),” Grasty said. “We saw their press on film and we tried to put the guys in the right spots, but when we would catch the ball I thought we panicked a bit. We didn’t catch and look to attack or catch and face I thought. If we would have faced up when we caught it, we could have attacked because we had guys in spots and positions to make plays. After we made a couple passes we had chances to get guys in 2-on-1s and 3-on-2s.” 

While the full court pressure caused a handful of turnovers, Upper Dublin struggled to convert those opportunities into many baskets on the other end. They never got within 14 points after halftime until the final minute of the game when it was out of reach. Sophomore wing Ryan Mulroy led the Cardinals with 13 points, scoring nine of them in the fourth quarter.

After a 1-3 start, Abington has won two in a row and Grasty believes the talent is there for this team to have success yet again, but getting his guys to play hard each and every night is the major point of emphasis going forward. 

“I thought the big thing was that we came out tonight with the energy that we have been trying to get these guys to play with since the beginning of the year,” Grasty said. “We saw that progression I think tonight and we are slowly getting to the level we need to be. If we can get that energy level up to go with our ability to make shots, rebound, and run the floor that will be big for us.”

Although he has a younger and inexperienced roster compared to some of his past teams, Grasty knows that his team is comfortable in their roles and everyone knows what they need to do going forward to build off of tonight’s performance.

“We tell our guys all the time, everybody on this team has a different role,” Grasty said. “But, at the same time everyone is equally important.”

Outside of Lee’s scoring, he also contributed 12 rebounds, with five of those coming on the offensive end. Rawls ran the show on offense, controlling the tempo after breaking the press and setting up his teammates often for success. Josh Young and Kellen Ingram combined for 16 points and did a lot of the ‘dirty work’ down low, rebounding the basketball and playing strong post defense on the Upper Dublin inside duo of Seaton Kukla and Idris Rines. 

Paul Glants and Liam Rardin combined for 16 points as well, knocking down two out of the five three-point field goals for Abington on the night.

While role allocation is a big step for any team when it comes to reaching their potential, building a chemistry on the floor and learning how to play with each other might be even more important. If the Ghosts can continue to do that, Lee likes the direction of this team that has district and state playoff aspirations to continue the tradition of excellence that Abington has become accustomed to. 

“With a team that doesn’t have much experience together, we need to just continue to play together and build that chemistry,” Lee said. “We have to adjust to playing for our coach and what he wants from each one of us to be the good team that we know we can be.”

By Quarter

Abington: 11 | 25 | 9 | 14 || 59

Upper Dublin: 9 | 11 | 9 | 20 || 49

Shooting

Abington: 21-34 FG (5/7 3PT) 12-18 FT

Upper Dublin: 17-48 FG (6/20 3PT) 9-12 FT

Scoring

Abington: Lee 25, Ingram 11, Glants 9, Rardin 7, Young 5, Cornell 2

Upper Dublin: Mulroy 14, Cerisier 12, M. Pensabene 6, Fogle 6, Kukla 5, Bazemore 4, G. Pensabene 2