City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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CHESTER — Jake Manigault had to find a way to cancel it out. Each second seemed to increase the volume that was throbbing through Widener’s Schwartz Athletic Center Monday night. Complicating matters more was Manigault, Abington’s 5-foot-11 senior guard, had to weave through the sticky web Chester’s press has put on opponents for decades.

As a sophomore and junior, Manigault had received sparse minutes off the bench. This time, his senior year, he wanted, no, demanded, the ball in his hands.

He literally put his head down and when the game reached its most crucial moments, it was Manigault who responded, scoring seven of his game-high 17 points in the fourth quarter, including three of the Ghosts’ final four points in Abington’s impressive 59-57 victory over Chester.

Paul Glants, the Ghosts’ 6-foot-4 senior guard, is the only significant player back with experience for Abington head coach Dan Marsh. When Glants fouled out with 3:21 left to play, Abington was clinging to a 53-50 lead, down from the 53-41 edge it held just two minutes prior.

Marsh wants his team to learn and grow from these scenarios. His team was faced with a similar situation against Phillipsburg over the Christmas holiday and that resulted in a two-point loss.

This time, it was Manigault who arrived at the forefront and supplied stability.

“Against Phillipsburg, we fell apart a little bit,” Marsh said. “We were in control (against Chester) and give Chester credit, with their pressure defense, they sped us up a little bit. Our biggest thing was composure.”

After wrapping up last season, Marsh had pulled Manigault aside and let him know he would like the 2024 team to have his personality. Manigault admittedly is not very vocal. He just literally puts his head down and grinds.

“I wanted the ball, I always want the ball,” Manigault said. “I’m not too vocal, but I want to set an example to the other guys. Since I was young, I always had a chip on my shoulder. We had 13 seniors last year and there were some guys I thought I should have played over.

“Chester is very good. They like to speed you up. When you have been working in the lab for countless hours, you block everything out. Games like this helps me get to my ultimate goal of playing in college.”

Manigault has good film, especially in the fourth quarter. He scored seven of Abington’s 12 fourth-quarter points, the most critical being a pair of free throws with 58 seconds left that gave Abington a 57-53 cushion. In the closing seconds of a one-score game, the ball was in Manigault’s hands again, when Chester was forced to foul.

With four ticks left, Manigault’s free throw gave Abington a 59-57 lead, which resulted in the final score, after Chester failed to get a last shot off.

Manigault received considerable help, supported by 16 points each from junior Faizon Garland and sophomore Xander Grasty.

It was Garland and Grasty that dragged the Ghosts to the finish line—and Manigault who yanked them over.

“We needed to bounce back from two tough games last week, losing a couple of games (to Phillipsburg and Cumberland Valley),” Garland said. “Chester likes to speed you up and we played to their level, when we should have slowed the game down. We executed when we had to, but I took some shots that I should not have.  

“We rebounded better this game than other games. We have to rebound as a group, because we aren’t really tall. We just have to keep working hard. Games like this help us deal with pressure.”

Chester is still trying to sort itself out. Clippers’ coach Keith Taylor does a consistent job every year of making Chester competitive. But this season is a little challenging. It’s the smallest Chester team in the program’s brilliant history.   

There was one sequence in the third quarter against Abington in which the Ghosts got five chances at the basket off missed shots.

Chester is still Chester.

The Clippers trailed by 12 three times in the fourth quarter, the latest being 53-41 with 5:46 to play.

Clippers’ 6-foot-3 senior forward Ra’Shaad Dorsey started biting into the deficit. He scored eight of his team-high 13 points in the fourth quarter, and freshman Zhir Clayton’s three-pointer with 33 seconds to play suddenly had Chester within 57-56.

Chester forced a turnover in the final 20 seconds, but the Clippers’ turned the ball right back and Abington closed a frantic finish.

“We’re still learning how to win,” Taylor said. “We knew coming into this year we wouldn’t have any height. We have to be scrappy and hell on defense to win. We have a young crew. We have to get down to detail parts. This is a learning thing. Our young guys played hard.

“We have to play smarter in the third quarter. If we cut down those problems in the third quarter, we will be okay. We have to make layups, and I have no idea how many we missed. Our seniors have to play smarter than how they’re playing. We’re going to be okay.”       

By Quarter
Abington (7-3): 15 | 12 | 20 | 12 ||  59
Chester (4-5): 14 | 13  |  10  | 20 ||  57

Scoring
Abington: Jake Manigault 17, Faizon Garland 16, Xander Grasty 16, Paul Glants 5, Kyler Pickeron 4, Zion Hospedales 1.

Chester: Ra’Shaad Dorsey 13, Paul Lindsay II 11, Zhir Clayton 9, Kristian Chambers 8, Dallas Thompson 7, Nyrell Pray 7, Nymeer Madison 2.

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Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on BlueSky here.