City of Basketball Love

Ryan Coyle (@ryancoyle35)
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As the Plymouth Whitemarsh Colonials were handed the 2022-23 SOL Tournament championship trophy, they shouted the same phrase: “Two more! Two more!” 

After defeating CB East, 68-40, in the SOL Tournament championship on Tuesday night, several players held up two fingers as well as they stood at midcourt in the PW gym and posed for celebratory pictures.

The Colonials have captured an SOL Liberty Division title and now league tournament title already this season. They still have their eyes set on two more pieces of hardware: the District 1 and PIAA Class 6A championship trophies. 

“Feels great, we are not done though,” junior point guard Jaden Colzie said after defeating CB East 68-40 on Tuesday night. “We’ve got two of four, that is what I kept saying to the guys when we got the trophy. This is just two of four, we still got two to go to achieve our goals. I want it all. I want everything that we can possibly win. But, tonight is another good night getting close to that.”

The Plymouth Whitemarsh boys basketball team poses together with the SOL Tournament trophy following a win over CB East on Tuesday. (Photo: Mark Jordan/CoBL)

PW (23-2, 17-0) wrapped up a perfect season in SOL play, going undefeated in regular season play, as well as winning three straight games in the SOL Tournament over Neshaminy, North Penn, and CB East over the past five days. 

The Colonials entered the game at 13-0 when holding their opponent under 50 points, while the Patriots (21-4, 14-3) were held under 50 points in each of their three losses prior to Tuesday. Those trends continued thanks to the Colonials dominant defensive performance.

“We knew coming into it we wanted to get up on them the whole game, guard the length of the floor, 94 feet,” Colzei said. “They are a team we know that can shoot threes, all of their guys can shoot. We wanted to make them uncomfortable from the start.”

PW did just that, holding a CB East team that thrives beyond the three-point line to 3-of-22 shooting from deep (13.6%) and holding the Patriots to their lowest point total of the season. East was without starting senior guard Joey Giordano on the night, as he was in street clothes on the bench, unclear as to why. PW also held the Patriots lead guard Jacob Cummiskey to only two points, on 1-of-9 shooting, and forced the junior into seven turnovers.

“CB East forces you to do a lot of homework,” PW head coach Jim Donofrio said. “They are a wonderful team and can really get those threes off. It gave us another concept that you have to get used to. We knew we had to get up on them and take away their space. It was a really concentrated game by our guys tonight.”

PW was spearheaded by a strong first quarter from Colzie, who led the Colonials with eight points in the period, including two made shots from beyond the arc en route to a 14-6 advantage for the Colonials. Dhruv Mukund had all six of the Patriots' points in the opening frame.

The second quarter saw PW start to really expand on its lead as Colzie chipped in another four points, but senior wing Quidire Bennett got going after a scoreless first quarter, when he scored 11 of his game-high 21 points.

“As a captain, along with my coaches, teammates, the managers, we never look past or underestimate an opponent,” Bennett said. “Any night if you don’t bring it, you could lose to a team that has won five games all year. So, no matter who it is, we all approach it with the same mindset that we need to focus on us and take care of what we need to do to win in any way possible.

“We watched a lot of CB East film and knew they were a great team, so we really had to focus. You saw when we went out there and focused on what we could do.”

Donofrio has been preaching the entire year that this Colonials team is one of his more talented squads in recent years, but the lack of experience, especially big-game experience and sometimes lack of focus concerns him. Tuesday, the maturation process of this group that plays only two seniors consistent minutes in its rotation was on full display.

“This tournament was really important given the amount of time you have off between the regular season and districts, as well as the inexperience of our team,” Donofrio said. “They have a different look in their eyes than the last couple of years at this moment. Jaden Colzie has grown up and is playing ridiculously confident. He is really running the show for us and is also blending in the scoring as well and is playing like a really good modern point guard.”

The trio of Colzie, Bennett, and junior guard Chase Coleman combined for 52 of the Colonials’ 68 points on the night, carrying the offensive production as they have for the entire season. Coleman got it going in the third quarter, scoring nine of his 15 points during the third frame. Coleman was also the primary defender on Cummiskey most of the night, essentially taking him out of the game as part of the PW defensive gameplan orchestrated by Donofrio.

“They have 33 threes over their last six games and it is from four or five different guys,” Donofrio said when describing the Patriots’ offensive attack. “In this particular game against a team that really wants to shoot a lot of threes, that requires a subtle change. 

“You have to get up and as we like to say ‘paper covers rock’, you have to cover the rock against teams like them. If not, and they get hot, they hit three or four in a row. You have to get up on them to entice dribbling and reduce their ball movement and then be elastic enough to slide with them on their drives.”

PW did just that, holding CB East to only 40 points on the night on 13-of-43 shooting from the field (30.2%), showing the defensive mindset that is essential come February.

“That is what the coaches have been preaching to us since day one on November 18th,” Bennett said. “Defense wins games, especially this time of year, you need to play defense in the playoffs and lock up on that side of the floor. There was some moments out there that we let up and lost focus, but when we were locked in and hungry on that end of the floor we showed what we can do when we put our effort into it.”

CB East, which was led by Tyler Dandrea with 11 points, will now shift its focus to the the 6A district playoffs where the Patriots earned the No. 4 seed and will face the winner of Friday’s No. 13 Pennsbury and No. 20 Abington matchup.

The Colonials, who led wire-to-wire in their 28-point championship victory and are unbeaten (16-0) since the calendar flipped to 2023, earned the No. 3 seed in the 6A District 1 bracket and will face the winner of No. 14 Penn Wood against No. 19 Norristown.

“I feel like we haven’t even played our best game yet,” Colzie said. “We have a lot of talented scorers on this team and that makes us tough to stop. Between myself, Chase, Q, Jah (Sayles), we have a lot of scorers on this team. I feel like we haven’t hit our peak yet and we have got another level we can take it to, to get us that district championship that we want.”

While the belief is there is still better basketball to play inside the Colonials locker room, they appear to be playing their best basketball of the season, with their average margin of victory over their last seven games checking at 17.5 points. 

“The last four to five years we have been okay, but this is a team that has a really nice demeanor and attitude towards wanting to get better and being the best they can be,” Donofrio said. “They are excited about what this is, what this can be, and they are just naive enough to pay attention. Usually, these things end in heartache for everyone except one. So, you try to enjoy the journey, take it one game at a time, and try to reach your eventual destination.”

The only destinations that will be sufficient for the Colonials now include hoisting those last two titles at Temple and Hershey.

By Quarter
PW:       14  |  17  |  22  |  15  ||  68
CB East:  6  |  8  |  13  |  13  ||  40

Shooting
PW: 26-52 FG (5-13 3PT) 7-12 FT
CB East: 13-43 FG (3-22 3PT), 10-13 FT 

Scoring
PW: Bennett 21, Colzie 16, Coleman 15, Sayles 5, Sharpe 5, Willis Jr. 2, Ring 2, Marsico 2

CB East: Dandrea 11, Mukund 9, Berndt 8, Condo 3, Lolas 3, Cummiskey 2, Demby 2, Jacob 2