Malone, Plymouth Whitemarsh smother Upper Dublin
WHITEMARSH >> There were two things that stood out at Colonial Gym Tuesday night in Plymouth Whitemarsh’s 61-38 win over Upper Dublin — Xzavier Malone’s wide variety of offensive moves and the Colonials defense’s ability to take over a game.
Malone scored a game-high 30 points and did it every way imaginable. He opened the game with a picture-perfect jump shot for two points and threw down a one-hand dunk a couple of possessions later. He drained a couple of three-point baskets and made a few double-clutch, acrobatic layups. He put the exclamation point on his evening when he pulled off a two-hand windmill dunk in the fourth quarter.
“Xzavier was Xzavier tonight,” PW coach Jim Donofrio said. “That’s what great players do – they make shots.
“He’s just so interesting. He himself is going to look back on his high school days probably and realize he was just started out as far as how much energy he can exert. I’m greedy. I see him as such an incredible North-South speed kid and yet I remember John Salmons was a guy that played at his own gear and it was a gear everyone said he doesn’t play hard enough — and he made $55 million. Who am I to know what I’m talking about? ‘X’ is one of those guys you look up and see 22 points, eight rebounds and 12 assists and say I think he could have given more. I can’t let him get comfy.”
“You tell your guys to force him right, then he takes one hard dribble right and he nails a shot,” Upper Dublin coach Josh Adelman said of Malone. “Everything he put up was going in. He was hitting threes. Sometimes you just have to tip the cap and say it’s his night. I thought (Upper Dublin’s Ryan) Stover was on him, but the shots were falling. It was a great game by him, have to give him credit.”
As for the defense, that’s where the Colonials (17-1, 10-1) took complete control of the game.
After the first quarter, PW led by three points, 11-8. It started the second on a 9-0 run to extend the lead to 12 and it would never be down to single digits again.
The Colonials defense was grabbing steals, forcing back-court and 10-second violations and blocking shots at the rim. The turnovers led to plenty of easy transition points that helped PW win the second quarter, 23-8, and turn the game into a blowout.
“We did not handle their pressure well,” Adelman said. “Give credit to Plymouth Whitemarsh, they really were coming at us in waves. We usually handle pressure very well but not tonight. It seemed like they were everywhere, like they had nine guys out there.”
The Cardinals (7-10, 5-6) got their deficit down to 12 early in the third quarter, but it quickly ballooned back up to 16 when Malone and Oakley Spencer started making shots.
PW’s Mike Lotito joined Malone in double figures with 10 points and no one else on the team scored more than five.
Stover and John Barrett led the Cardinals in scoring with 10 points each and Jimmy Gallagher added six.
