City of Basketball Love

By Mike Gross
—

As part of its pregame warmup, Westtown runs through a team defensive drill, shifting and moving as the ball is passed around the perimeter, with effort and lots of loud communication.

Turns out to be more than a drill. 

The Moose put it into practice against Academy of the New Church Tuesday, stifling the Lions with halfcourt man-to-man on one end of the floor while getting elite shotmaking from AJ Stewart and Rowan Phillips on the other.

It added up to a 69-54 win in a key Friends’ School League game at Westtown’s gym.

“(Defense) is the key to our team, because we’ve got such a talented offensive group,’’ said Westtown coach Seth Berger. “If we defend, then we rebound, so I loved that.’’

Four minutes in, the Moose (12-4, 1-0 FSL) led 14-2, and New Church had barely gotten a decent shot. Westtown’s shots weren’t always great ones either, unless you count very contested, high degree-of-difficulty jumpers. 

Stewart and Phillips, both of whom scored 25, do count those.

“He’s really good at making tough shots,’’ Phillips said of Stewart, who finished with five 3-pointers. “I think we were both good at that tonight, We did a good job of making the right plays at the right time.’’

“That’s definitely one of my strengths, making tough shots,’’ said Stewart. “We definitely feed off each other’s energy.’’

Westtown led 40-22 at the half, and pushed the lead to a stunning 47-24 early in the third quarter.

Stunning, because these schools are powers and rivals. Westtown won the FSL title eight straight times from 2014-22, but haven’t won it since. New Church won it the past two years, and beat Westtown in the semifinals of the league playoffs a year ago.

“It’s always that rivalry, a friendly rivalry,’’ Berger said. “We love each other, but we all go to war. And any time you get a win, it feels great.’’

No surprise, then, that down 20, ANC wasn’t finished. The Lions began finding their veteran big guys in the lane. Especially 6-7 Ryan Warren, who was excellent and relentless in scoring 22.

Westtown was never in serious danger, but there was an extended period of ANC pressing and trapping, and the Moose kicking the ball around or clanking a free throw here and there. 

“I thought we lost our focus a little bit,’’ Phillips said. “But in the end we did a good job of staying together.’’

The Lions pulled within 13, at 57-44, with 6:30 left. 

Whenever it got slightly dicey, Stewart and Phillips were there with a play or tough shot.

“They don’t need any help from me on offense,’’ Berger said. 

They’re both future Division I college players. Stewart, a junior, has offers from Sacred Heart and La Salle and has heard from Stanford, Villanova and South Carolina.

Phillips is only a sophomore. He transferred in from Archbishop Wood after last season and has helped Westtown take a big step back towards looking like an FSL front-runner . He said he’s already heard from Villanova, Syracuse, Notre Dame and Penn State.

“One of the most important plays from tonight is when they trapped him around half court, and instead of freaking out and turning the ball over, he stepped through the double-team and got fouled,’’ said Berger.

“He’s going to be a pro. He has a chance to be an NBA point guard. What’s really impressive to me, this year, has been his improvement.’’

By Quarter
Academy New Church 9  | 13  |  18  | 14 || 54
Westtown School       24  | 16  |  16  |  13 ||  69

Scoring
ANC: Dior Carter 10, Ryan Warren 22, Cam Smith 9, Bryce Rollerson 11, Antonio Lozado

Westtown: AJ Stewart 25, Rowan Phillips 25, Declan Ehigie 2, Wilson Udo 4, Victor Lagerkvist 6, Peace Brand 2, Chibuikem Oli 2, Marshall Bailey 3.