City of Basketball Love

By Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)

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(Ed. Note: This story is part of CoBL’s “Prepping for Preps” series, which will take a look at many of the top high school programs in the region as part of our 2023-24 season preview coverage. The complete list of schools previewed thus far can be found here.)

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It’s still Abington girls basketball, just with a few differences.

Plenty of names around the Ghosts program are familiar and established. At the same time, it’s impossible to overlook the names that aren’t around any more, and that extends beyond the players on the roster.

There may be a new head coach, there may be a new approach in some aspects, but the expectations in Abington?

Those never change.

“We want to do everything we didn’t do last year,” junior point guard Maya Johnson said.

For the first time in 17 years, Dan Marsh will not be on the sideline coaching Abington girls basketball. Marsh, who led the Ghosts to District 1 titles in 2010 and 2016, is now leading the Abington boys program.

Taking over is Allison Lawson, who served as an assistant under Marsh the last three years and shares her players’ high expectations. Lawson, a middle school physical education teacher in the district, isn’t trying to re-write the book on what’s made the program so successful the last decade and a half, but she’s also making it her own.

With an experienced roster boasting a nice mix of seniors, juniors and underclassmen, Lawson has a good foundation to start her first season. It certainly helps she’s already got a good rapport with her players and they immediately took to her as their leader.

“She likes to trust us and let us do what we want to do,” senior forward Sarah Oleary said. “She’s told us, ‘Have fun, you know you can play, so do what you want to do and we’re going to win.’”

Even with their usual handful of fall athletes, the Ghosts have been busy this preseason figuring out their new identity. Lawson, who played her college basketball at West Chester, wants that to be a collaborative effort.

“You trust me, I trust you, then we trust each other,” Lawson said. “That’s our motto for the year: trust. As long as we trust each other, then we can get through tight games, we can get through anything that may happen. 

“They believe in me, and I told them, ‘I won’t steer you wrong.’”

While Lawson is always ready with a play or a set to run, she values her players’ insight plenty, as well. During her team’s comeback win over Bishop Shanahan at the CoBL Fall Classic in early October, the first-year coach switched up her plan to roll with what was working.

“I told them early on, I don’t care who has 20 or if anyone has 20, as long as it shows Abington won and the other team lost,” Lawson said. “It’s going to take a team. Everyone’s going to shoot, everyone’s going to score but only if you believe in each other.”

Abington also has to replace a couple key players from last year’s state quarterfinalist, including the greatest scorer in program history.

Cire Worley is gone, ready to start her college career at UMass-Lowell, and leaves an all-state caliber, seemingly automatic 20-points-per-game hole that somehow needs to be filled. The departed 6-foot-1 wing was the Ghosts’ tallest player and leaves them smaller than in years past.

“It gives an advantage too, being a smaller team,” Johnson said. “We’re smaller, but we’re faster.

“The last couple years, it was always one or two people, but we all have to step in this time.”

Sharpshooting guard Abril Bowser, who was also a menace defensively with her quick hands and penchant for creating steals, also graduated and is about to start her freshman season at Mansfield.

Nobody is expecting any one player to replicate the numbers that Worley or Bowser posted, and the Ghosts know they’ll have to win with a unified front.

There’s still plenty to work with. Johnson returns as a third-year starter at the point; the 5-3 junior has some of the best handles around, and it’s common for her to get low and use her quickness to slice through defenses.

Seniors Piper McGinley and Jordyn Reynolds also return as starters. Reynolds is always one made shot away from a hot streak as an outside shooter, while McGinley is coming off a breakout junior year and brings the requisite tenacity on both sides of the floor.

“It’s just our personalities,” McGinley said. “Everybody on the team wants to win. Everybody is competitive. When we practice and scrimmage, there’s arguments all the time.”

Oleary, who has committed to Washington College, gives the team a little bit of size at 5-10. Sophomore Mikiaya Durham, who found a role as the Ghosts’ top reserve last year, has looked good all offseason. Durham, who plays as a wing for Abington, is fearless and her improvement over the summer has stood out this fall.

“Definitely watch Kiya,” Johnson said. “Her shooting’s gotten way better and she’s more aggressive.”

Zyn McClain, a 5-9 sophomore, has given the team great energy this fall. Junior guard Ava Teich and senior forward Kaylia Rice should push for minutes, while McGinley’s twin sister Harper will come over with Piper from the soccer team to provide some depth.

Abington still brings high expectations into the season. The Ghosts expect to win the Suburban One League Liberty, to contend for the SOL Tournament title, make a run in districts and get back to states.

If anyone outside the program doesn’t believe that, they don’t mind.

“They can underestimate us all they want,” McGinley said.