City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)

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ABINGTON, PA — Aniyah Williams cannot help herself. Her affable nature off the court spills on to the court—she plays with a constant smile. Though in the pregame layup line and general warmups on Saturday afternoon, the usually genial 5-foot-8 Abington senior was slightly guarded.

She was nervous playing rival Cheltenham, which beat the Ghosts last year. That tension was wiped clean as soon as Williams scored, and scored, and scored some more. She finished with a game-high 23 points and 20 rebounds—18 points coming in the first half and 12 in the first quarter of Abington’s impressive 55-43 victory over a talented Cheltenham team.

It marked Abington’s fifth-straight victory and Williams’ best performance this season.

“I didn’t sleep much last night,” she said. “I was a little nervous because it was Cheltenham, a rival, and we lost to them last year. I was trying to get our get back, stay focused and keep a good morale.”

This is a pivotal year for Williams, a stellar flag football player. This may be the last year she plays organized basketball, after being academically accepted to Morgan State, Thomas Jefferson, St. Joseph’s, Eastern University with a 3.6 GPA with the goal to major in nursing. She has the athleticism and skill to play college basketball, her coach Allison Lawson maintains, and on Saturday, it was easy to see.

Williams, who plays no AAU or summer basketball, did everything for the Ghosts. She ran the point. She did the bulk of the rebounding, and she looked to set up her teammates, at times to a fault of passing up her own makable shots. When the Ghosts lost senior center Zyn McClain for the season with a torn ACL five games ago, it put more responsibilities on Williams.  

“I do give Aniyah the green light to shoot more, and I wish she would, but more importantly, I want her to make the right read,” said Lawson, who is in her fifth season at Abington, her third as head coach and second with Williams as a starter. “She does give up shots she has because she thinks about her teammates first. There was one charge call in the first half, where she should have taken the shot. Aniyah knows for us to win, the ball has to be in her hands.

“And everything she does, she does it with a smile. It’s just who she is. She is very humble, and she knew she was handling the point for us after we graduated (Abington all-time assist leader) Maya Johnson.”

In the beginning, Williams had to adjust, because her game had been more slashing without the ball. She has good size and moves very well.

“Coaching Aniyah, I knew she was a little nervous before this game,” Allison said. “Once she scored, she was okay. Our stats said she had 12 rebounds, but I know she had a lot more (she did).”

Allison may wish for Williams to be nervous before every game.

Cheltenham led once, 2-0.    

Then Williams took over. She scored 12 in the first quarter driving to the basket, and scored 8 of the Ghosts’ last 10 points in the quarter to surge ahead, 21-12. By halftime, Abington was up, 35-23, with Williams scoring 18.     

Cheltenham, which featured a trio of scorers in Paige Powell (16 points), Isabella Brown (12), Maya Simmons (11), made runs. But each time the Panthers looked like they were going to make it a competitive game, they would turn the ball over or try and force a contested shot. Abington was up by as much as 51-32 early in the fourth quarter, but the Panthers, mainly behind Powell, pushed back to get within 12 in the last minute.

Andréa Jones, a 2002 Cheltenham graduate and the starting point guard on the Panthers’ 2000 PIAA girls’ AAAA championship team under legendary coach Bob Schaefer, is trying to bring back stability to her alma mater.

The Panthers won the Suburban One League Freedom Division last season under Monique Boykins, who left to take over at West Catholic this season. Jones is the third coach in the last four years at Cheltenham.

“Despite the effort today, I like how we’re coming along, because this is a new system and they are adapting to it,” Jones said. “I am the third coach in four years. We’re building trust and this is a process. We have been playing together, and I can say Paige has been very consistent and is building her confidence.”

Simmons, a four-year starter, sees a turnaround coming.

“Coach Jones is our third coach in four years, and that can be tough adjusting,” Simmons said. “We needed this game. It showed what we need to work on, and we’re still in early January. We can rebound better and hustle more to get 50-50 balls. We can play with a little more grit, and I think we can make that happen. I liked how we didn’t give up; we kept fighting. We need to trust each other a little more, work better with each other a little more. We’ll go back to the lab and work on it.”

By Quarter

Cheltenham (6-5):  12  | 11  |  9  | 11 || 43

Abington (9-6):  21  | 14  |  10  |  10 ||  55

Scoring

Cheltenham: Paige Powell 16, Isabella Brown 12, Maya Simmons 11, Kaylin Washington 3, Amiyah Wallace 1.

Abington: Aniyah Williams 23, Caleigh Fitzpatrick 9, Shya Crafton 8, Rhyane Rogers 8, Nora Luskin 4, Asaliya Ortiz 3.

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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.