Heath’s big plays lead Abington over Archbishop Carroll

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ABINGTON >> Robbie Heath stood at the foul line with 13.5 seconds left, having just missed the first of two free throws and was just plain confident.

Without second thought, the Abington junior sank the second to put his team up three and exactly where it wanted to be. Despite having perennial Philadelphia Catholic League contender Archbishop Carroll on the other side, the Galloping Ghosts knew it was their game to win if they took care things.

Abington took care of what it needed to and edged out a 62-59 win on their home floor Tuesday against the Patriots, though Carroll had three good looks late that just didn’t fall its way.

“It feels like we’re playing every Catholic League school in a row, so starting off like this, we see it as just the start for us,” Heath, who had 22 points, said. “We had to close out on their shooters, play aggressive, rebound and the past two games we hadn’t been running the fastbreak properly so our coaches harped on that and we did well with that.”


Carroll has a different look than the last two seasons, but it’s still a well-coached, good-shooting group with a lot of athletes and scorers. Abington jumped out early behind two dunks from Heath and took a 15-7 lead on an Eric Dixon jumper with 1:53 left in the first quarter.

Heath and Dixon, the talented sophomore big man, combined for the first 16 Abington points and the Ghosts likely could have built a bigger lead if not for the play of Carroll’s Khari Williams. The 6-foot-4 senior guard scored a game-high 23 and had 18 of them in the first half, where he pretty much kept the Patriots from sinking.

“I don’t think we started off nearly as well as I would have liked, but this is a good game to have early,” Carroll coach Paul Romanczuk said. “I said at halftime if it wasn’t for Khari, we’re probably in the hole eight or 10 points. He did a really good job of scoring the ball and keeping us afloat.”

Thanks to Williams, it was only a one-point game at the half, 31-30, after he banked in a buzzer-beater from a step past the halfcourt line to end the second quarter, capping off an 11-point frame.

Abington came into the game 2-0 after winning its own season-opening tournament, but coach Charles Grasty felt his team was capable of playing much better. With Carroll, the first of a daunting four-game week, in the gym, it seemed to raise that level of play.

The Ghosts turn right around and face Archbishop Wood Wednesday at Arcadia, then host archrival Pennsbury Friday night and conclude the week with a game against Roman Catholic at Wood’s Coaches vs Cancer showcase on Saturday. Grasty is expecting them all to be like Tuesday.

“I’m sure they will be. We play four really tough teams and I told our guys, especially the guys who didn’t play a lot tonight, be ready,” Grasty said. “We feel like it’ll be like this all year, but we are playing some top-notch competition this week. We’ll see how we respond. I challenged our guys to step it up and see what we’re made of and we did, as far as the energy.”

After Carroll knotted the game 33-33 on free throws by AJ Hoggard, Abington scored eight of the next 10 to take a 41-36 lead. The Ghosts extended it out to 51-38 on a pair of freebies by Heath with 1:06 left in the third quarter before the Patriots charged back.

Mark Bradshaw and Colin Daly each connected on 3-pointers in the final 50 seconds to cut into the lead and Williams made it a 51-49 game with a trey with 4:15 to go in the fourth quarter. Abington, which went four-plus minutes without a point to open the fourth, held firm.

“Coach said they were going to make a run and they did so, but we just had to play the way we’d been playing the whole game,” Heath said. “We just had to take our time and make our free throws.”

With Carroll holding momentum, Heath slowed it down with a driving layup with 3:51 to go, though Williams responded by feeding Justin Anderson for 3 on the next possession, making it 53-52. Heath and Williams traded hoops before Heath canned two foul shots to put his team up three with 2:01 to play.

“You can’t hide in the Catholic League, and we’re going to have a number of games that come down to the end,” Romanczuk said. “Abington made one or two plays tonight.”

Williams tried to tie it with a trey, but was off the mark. Heath got the board and fired it up to Rob Young, who was fouled and hit both of his to give Abington a five-point edge with 90 seconds to go.

“He made big plays tonight,” Grasty said. “Robbie, I challenged him and he did a good job, stepping up and making plays for us.”

Hoggard, who had a solid game with 10 points, converted a three-point play and after a Ghost turnover, Carroll looked like it was in business. It was not to be as the Patriots missed two chances on a close range shot and a mid-range jumper to tie, then saw Heath split his foul shots with 13.5 left to make it a three-point game.

“It just rimmed out, so I knew I was going to make the second one,” Heath said.

Abington fouled Williams with 5.9 left, before he could try a 3, so he could only cut the lead to one at the line. Dixon then hit two free throws and Hoggard’s last second attempt to tie the game fell off the mark, giving Abington the win.

“We got three decent looks at the end of the game there,” Romanczuk said. “Credit to Abington, they did a good job defensively on us and they jumped on us early. That’s a good basketball team, it’s a good high school basketball game and to get those shots and have those end of game situations, you try to simulate it but don’t get quite the same feel.”

Abington 62, Archbishop Carroll 59
ARCHBISHOP CARROLL 13 17 14 15 – 59
ABINGTON 16 15 20 11 – 62
Archbishop Carroll (59): Khari Williams 8 2-2 23, AJ Hoggard 2 6-7 10, Justin Anderson 2 3-3 8, Mark Bradshaw 2 0-0 5, Colin Daly 1 0-0 3, Jesse McPhearson 0 2-2 2, Keon Butler 0 2-2 2, Jahmir Marable-Williams 1 0-0 2, Devon Ferraro 2 0-0 4. Totals: 18 15-18 59
Abington (62): Robbie Heath 6 10-11 22, Eric Dixon 5 5-6 17, Lucas Monroe 2 4-7 8, Eric Dougherty 1 3-3 6, Rob Young 1 3-4 6, Darius Brown 1 0-0 3, Joe O’Brien 0 0-2 0. Nonscoring: Brandon Coffman, Rohan Malnotra. Totals: 16 25-33 62
3-pointers: AC – Williams 5, Bradshaw, Anderson, Daly; A – Dixon 2, Dougherty, Young, Brown

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Andrew Robinson

Andrew Robinson
Montgomery Media/Lansdale Reporter sports writer.

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