City of Basketball Love

By Ryan Coyle (@ryancoyle35)
__

FORT WASHINGTON — 2002.

The last year the Upper Dublin boys basketball team won an outright Suburban One League Title. Not a single player on the 2023-24 Upper Dublin team was born yet and coach Derek Brooks was 11 years old.

That drought ended on Thursday night when the Cardinals defeated Plymouth Whitemarsh, 54-45, for the first time since February 2014 to claim the Suburban One Liberty Division outright league title.

“It feels so good,” junior wing Ryan Mulroy said. “Freshman year we had to share it with PW. It doesn’t really feel like a championship when you have to share it. It’s just an awesome feeling. We haven’t beat those guys in ten years. So to be able to beat them and win it outright in the same night, it’s just awesome.”

The win gives the Cardinals a 17-3 overall record and 13-1 league record with games against Hatboro-Horsham and Lower Moreland still on the schedule. Even if the Cardinals were to lose both of those games, their win on Thursday night gave them a three game advantage in the loss column over second place PW, allowing the Cardinals to clinch the outright title. 

“Couldn’t be prouder of those guys,” Brooks said. “April 17th was our first team open gym, and these guys since then have really put in the work every single day. They’ve held each other accountable, they have been committed, there’s never a day that goes by that these guys aren’t working hard. When you do that and have that level of commitment, you can achieve things like we did tonight.”

The victory over the visiting Colonials wasn’t a cakewalk though, as Plymouth-Whitemarsh jumped out a 12-2 lead and held Upper Dublin to 1-of-9 shooting from the field in the first six minutes of action.

The slow start didn’t impact the Cardinals mental edge in their biggest regular season game since Brooks took over as head coach last season. Upper Dublin didn’t take its first lead of the game (39-37) until a Chris Kohlbrenner (8 points) layup in transition with 7:07 to go in the fourth quarter.

“No matter what the score is, we aren't going to give up,” Mulroy said. “That has been our thing all year. Our team is a really good team, we are going to keep playing, keep playing together and aren’t going to give up. This is an awesome group to be around, we know what we are capable of accomplishing, so no matter what the score is we keep working because we know we are always in it.”

After taking the lead in the fourth quarter with 7:07 to go, the Cardinals didn’t trail again, ending the game on a 15-8 run as they were sparked by a big fourth quarter from forward Idris Rines who had seven of his 11 points in the final frame. Rines was ready for the big moment.

“We lost in the first round of districts last year,” Rines said. “And I remember, March 4th, Ryan and I got back in the gym together and just started working. More guys started joining us. April came along and we got the whole team back for official workouts and we just have been working since, to win games like this.”

Upper Dublin’s defensive effort after the first quarter, when they gave up 15 points and allowed five three pointers, was one of the key reasons they were able to come back and win the league championship on their home floor.

They held the PW duo of Jaden Colzie and Mani Sajid to 23 points and 5-of-18 from downtown.

“They are one of the best teams in the area,” Mulroy said of PW. “We know we need a hand in their face and get in their space at all times and we didn’t do that in the first half. In the second half we did that better, we took away their space and I thought we made it tougher on them and locking in on defense allowed us to come back.”

Mulroy, the catalyst for the Cardinals who is still only a junior, had a team high 18 points in the victory on Thursday, including 14 of Upper Dublin’s 20 in the first half helping keep his team afloat while they were finding their footing on the offensive end.

“That’s Ryan for you,” Brooks said. “He’s the guy when you have nothing going for you, that is when you go ‘Thank God we have Ryan’. His hustle, the way he attacks, he is fearless. In all our big games, in all our big moments, he has stepped up. He just wants it more then anybody else out there. Thank God we have him and next year too. I don’t want that kid going anywhere.”

With the victory, Upper Dublin checked two goals off their list of season long accomplishments in one night: Beat Plymouth-Whitemarsh and win the SOL Liberty outright.

With the calendar turned to February and the postseason on the horizon, up next for the Cardinals is getting over their postseason woes of the last two winters where they were one and done. They’ll take a crack at an SOL Tournament title and then enter the District 1-5A tournament, looking at the moment like a contender — if not one of the favorites — in both events.

The guys in this locker room though believe this year might just be a little bit different than the last two.

“We just wanted it more this year,” Rines said. “We were real connected through the whole offseason. At Philly Live, other tournaments, we played real well and we saw what we could be. I just think our connection and the work we have put in since the last year has really shown and we accomplished one of the things we set out for with a league championship. But, we got more to go now and aren’t done yet.”

By Quarter
Plymouth-Whitemarsh:  15  |  11  |  11  |  8 ||  45
Upper Dublin:           7  |  13  |  14  |  20  ||  54

Shooting
Plymouth-Whitemarsh: 16-47 FG (8-29 3PT), 4-7 FT
Upper Dublin: 20-41 FG (3-13 3PT), 11-17 FT 

Scoring

Plymouth-Whitemarsh: Sajid 14, Sayles 12, Colzie 9, Marsico 8, Harris 2

Upper Dublin: Mulroy 18, Rines 11, Kohlbrenner 8, Bazemore 6, Cohen 5, Fogle 4, Altman 2