City of Basketball Love

Dan Arkans (@danarkans)
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Whitemarsh – With so much star power around him, Plymouth Whitemarsh junior point guard Jack Hayes can get lost in the shuffle from time to time.

Much of that star power which brought out La Salle University head coach Fran Dunphy on Friday night is centered around junior swingman Mani Sajid, who poured in 34 points during an 80-58 drubbing of SOL Liberty rival Abington on Friday night.

Center 6-foot-9 Michael Pereira would be star number two and he didn’t disappoint either with 9 points and 11 rebounds. For more flash Archbishop Wood transfer Buddy Denard can come off the bench and provide a spark like he did with nine points of his own.

But the glue of a team that has some rather lofty goals, well, that’s Jack Hayes.

“Jack is the motor of the team,” Sajid said. “He does everything. He gets back on defense. He will take a charge when we need it. He will make the plays when he needs to. He is the motor of this team.”

Hayes was dominant at times from his point guard position with seven points, 10 assists and five rebounds. In fact he had five assists in a first quarter that saw the Colonials rolling with a 24-7 lead, most of them to Sajid.

“Coach got on us at practice this week,” Hayes said. “He told us to focus more, our energy has to get up. We came out, finally took a big lead to start the game. I think we were up 24-7 and you know these past couple of games we have come out slow. Starting out fast was good to just build off of that. That was huge for us.”

While Hayes and Sajid were flying to start, the Colonials did cool off a bit in the second quarter. Partly that was because the PW point guard took to the bench and the Ghosts responded by whittling down the deficit to 37-23 at the half behind Paul Glants (10 points) and Xander Grasty (9 points) hitting buckets.

“We have some really good pieces,” PW Head Coach Jim Donofrio said. “They also happen to be nice guys. That combination leads to comfort and attention. We started the season as nice well-balanced individuals who think this is some kind of fun show. So when you have a trilogy of games with Abington, Coatesville 24 hours later and Upper Dublin in three days you gotta make sure the mindset is right. We are not there yet. We are not ready to match the hype we were given.”

A lengthy halftime talk got the Colonials going in the third quarter. So did a more aggressive Hayes, who led the Colonials on a 13-1 run to take a 50-24 lead with 3:36 to go in the frame. Hayes scored all seven of his points during the spurt.

“Jack, you are in a whole different role now,” said Donofrio. “It’s not Jaden Colzie. It’s all your show now. There are things you can be even more precise in, even more disciplined in. He’s got a hard job man. Mani is covered in a lot of different ways. We are putting a lot of heat on him and Buddy as well to be sophisticated point guards when they are juniors and sophomores. We are doing stuff that’s going to pay off down the road. What Jack Hayes brings you when he’s confident and he’s getting that back is all that intangible stuff. Man was he a glue guy. "We missed that, that would have been nice. Oh, we got it back. Jack Hayes got it back.’”

Hayes did it all on Friday night, diving for loose balls, going into the paint to grab rebounds or make a sweet, 360 move that brought the crowd to its feet.

“That’s what he does,” Sajid said. “That’s Jack Hayes. There’s not much I can say. I see that all the time.”

Hayes admitted to getting a bit overlooked with not just the star power of the Colonials, but the height they own as well. However, he doesn’t exactly look at himself as small in stature.

“I am not that big but I try to play like I can play against bigger kids, just box out and stuff like that," Hayes said. “Our lineup is very big this year.”

Friday night’s 22-point romp was a good start to an important week for the Colonials (9-2, 4-0). Up next is Coatesville on Saturday and then an SOL Liberty heavyweight title fight with Upper Dublin.

You would think it was a good start to the challenging stretch.

“I know I look like the biggest ogre in the world in the stands,” Donofrio said. “I am trying to get them to a level. Fortunately or unfortunately have coached teams that have such incredible defensive energy and discipline I know it’s possible. Either you like that I am doing it or you can’t stand it. I know it sounds like I am killing the fun of a very nice win tonight, but it’s about the standard of excellence you can play at. Like it or not we are going to push for that.”

Score by Quarter

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Abington 7-16-14-21-58

PW 24-13-23-20-80

Scoring

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Abington (58): Glants 10; Hospedales 5; Grasty 9; Garland 8; Manigault 0; Pickron 14; O’Rourke 3; Lucas 2; Scarpello 2; D’Arco 5.

PW (80): Sajid 34; M. Pereira 9; Ahmed 2; Denard 9; Bridgeman 6; Taylor 6; Hayes 7; Davis 5; W. Perreira 2;