Plymouth Whitemarsh rallies at half, beats Bangor in PIAA AAAA 2nd round
READING >> Plymouth Whitemarsh is heading back to the PIAA Class AAAA quarterfinals.
The (1-1) Colonials knocked off (11-2) Bangor Wednesday night, 58-44, at the Geigle Complex at Reading High School.
For 16 minutes, PW had its hands full. It trailed by three, 26-23, heading into the locker room at halftime.
That all changed after the break.
The Colonials opened the third quarter on a 19-4 run to take a commanding 42-30 lead late in the period and headed to the fourth with a 10-point edge, 43-33.
“We’ve been a great second-half team all year,” PW coach Jim Donofrio said. “My concern was subtle, but it was there – your last two games are winning the district title and winning by 40. We’ve never been good cocky. We have to be a humble cocky, we’ve never been good at relaxed cocky. Some of that came out in the first half, but more of it was (being) relaxed mentally.
“You can see we were the true one-seed out of District One and the talent tends to – over 32 minutes – rise and that’s what happened. If you want to have talent and not concentrate, it’s an equal game – and that’s what it was for a while.”
PW forced three turnovers on the Slaters first three possessions of the third quarter – senior guard Kevin Ashenfelter tied up a Bangor player to force a jump, stole another and then a Slater walked. PW forced eight of Bangor’s 22 turnovers in the third.
“We kind of just picked it up in the energy department and got into our black press,” senior Mike Lotito said. “That was one of the main reasons we came back.”
All the while, Lotito was getting it done on the offensive end. He scored 10 points in the third to help PW take full control of the game.
“I just tried to stay aggressive,” the forward said. “My teammates found me. I like to do a little damage inside, a little damage outside. I got to the rim and was able to finish. It was a good job by my teammates to put me in that position.”
The Slaters trimmed their deficit to seven in the fourth with 3:40 to go when Michael Martino hit a step-back three-pointer with PW’s Xzavier Malone draped all over him.
But then Malone – the senior Rider commit – answered.
The lefty drained a floater to extend to lead to nine and – after a Bangor turnover by dribbling out of bounds – he put a layup off the glass and in for an 11-point edge.
Malone drew a charge on the ensuing possession and followed that with another basket to ice the game, giving PW a 13-point lead, 52-39, with two minutes to go.
“Xzavier became Xzavier,” Donofrio said. “Over 32 minutes he’s going to become Xzavier … Was he great? No. He was good. But teams are going to concentrate on taking everything away from him anyway they can.”
Malone finished with a game-high 20 points and Lotito added 16.
Martino paced the Slaters with 14 points, Anthony Schiavone had 12 and Dylan Benton nine.
The Colonials will face (12-3) Simon Gratz in the quarterfinals Saturday at a time and place to be determined.
“You have a chance on Saturday that if you can pull that off, you’re playing in the final week of the season,” Donofrio said, “and that’s very special. Very few teams get that. If that doesn’t motivate you now, go home.”
This is the round PW’s season ended a year ago to Martin Luther King.
“Coach D mentioned it,” Lotito, who missed last postseason, said. “He said the goal is to text (2015 graduates) Andre Mitchell and Jimmy Murray and say we went farther than you guys on Sunday if we are fortunate enough. That’s definitely a goal – to be better than last year.”
