Plymouth Whitemarsh faces its toughest test in Roman
To be the best, you’ve got to beat the best.
That’s the next challenge for the Plymouth Whitemarsh boys basketball team.
The (1-1) Colonials will face Roman Catholic in the PIAA Class AAAA semifinals Tuesday night at 7 p.m. at Council Rock High School South.
The (12-1) Cahillites are the defending state champs and won the Philadelphia Catholic League and District 12 AAAA titles in 2015 and 2016.
Roman brings everything to the table. It has elite talent — a trio of seniors (Tony Carr, Nazeer Bostick and Lamar Stevens) committed to Penn State, depth — two more D1 prospects (senior Paul Newman and junior D’Andre Vilmar) and championship experience — the five previously mentioned titles, plus Carr, Bostick and Newman led Team Hardnett to the 2015 Albert C. Donofrio crown last April in Conshohocken.
Another advantage Roman has over PW — and just about every team it plays — is size. Bostick and Vilmar stand at 6-3, Carr 6-4 and Stevens and Newman both 6-7.
“Tony Carr and Bostick are really big, strong guards,” PW coach Jim Donofrio said of preparing for a team with so much talent. “As well as Stevens, obviously, who is just a man-child. What you do is watch multiple types of teams play them and how did they play them. You look at scoring in games and you try to say OK, how did Carroll play them? How did La Salle play them? How did Parkland play them? How does that all work with us playing them? The Chester game (District 1 final) was kind of a prototype for this game. Only add 10 percent more juice to this game. Chester was very big and Roman is very big, but the difference in the two teams is Tony Carr, for the most part. Tony is special.”
All of those accomplishments do not diminish what this Plymouth Whitemarsh group has done. Over the past two seasons, the Colonials have won two Suburban One League American Conference titles, reached the District 1 AAAA title game twice, won the district this year, reached the state quarterfinals in 2015 and now find themselves in the semis.
“Not this year,” Donofrio said of an underdog mentality being advantageous against Roman. “I think it would be had we not won the district. We have the greatest respect in the world for Roman, but I think … league champs, district champs, every step of the way we’ve gotten more of a confidence and a toughness. Whatever happens, I don’t think we’re going to act like we’re new to the moment.”
The Colonials have their own elite talent in senior guard and Rider commit Xzavier Malone, who averaged just under 20 points per game in the regular season and has topped that in nearly every playoff game, including a 29-point performance in the District 1 title win over Chester.
Surrounding Malone, PW has seniors Mike Lotito, Oakley Spencer and Kevin Ashenfelter. Lotito uses a variety of moves to get points inside, Spencer runs the points and the head of the “black press” to near-perfection and Ashenfelter can make teams pay from three-point land.
As for depth, the Colonials bring sophomore twins Ahmin and Ahmad Williams off the bench. The two play with a ton of energy and never let up with their on-ball defense and rebounding on both ends.
The last time these schools met in the playoffs, PW won in the quarterfinals on its way to a state title in 2010.
PW got here by beating Lebanon, 81-41, Bangor, 58-44, and Simon Gratz, 52-43, in states.
Roman’s first three state games were wins against Academy Park, 73-58, Central Bucks West, 60-41, and Parkland, 73-60.
The winner of this game earns a trip to Hershey Saturday for the state championship game where it will face the winner of (3-1) Reading and (8-1) Allerdice.
