Eric Dixon leads Abington in win over Wissahickon
ABINGTON >> After failing to score in double figures for the first time since early in his high school career last Friday, Abington senior Eric Dixon came out firing Monday night.
The 6-foot-7 senior scored 10 points in the first quarter and finished with 28 to lead the Galloping Ghosts to a 64-52 Suburban One League American Conference win over Wissahickon at Abington Senior High School.
“I think I had a 91-game streak or something like that,” Dixon said of scoring in double figures. “(Scoring 10 in the first) was just taking what the defense was giving us. We looked at the film from PW (47-40 win) and we just let them slow it down too much. This game we wanted to come out and play fast pace and I just happened to be out in front of the break or coming through at the right spots. We’re just playing the game the right way.”
Dixon displayed a variety of offensive moves. He hit a three-pointer, powered through defenders for layups and finished a fast break with a vicious left-hand dunk — and that was all in the first quarter.
“Dixon, he’s a really impressive player,” Wissahickon coach Kyle Wilson said. “I think he had 28 or something? It was a quiet 28. He probably could have had 40 if he wanted to keep going. He’s that good. My hat’s off to him.”
The Villanova-bound forward, who rested the entire fourth quarter, finished with two three-pointers, three and-ones and consistently grabbed offensive rebounds for easy putbacks.
“We knew that we could dump it down to the big fella,” Abington coach Charles Grasty said, “and we thought that he could get some good looks. Our guards played well, too. They didn’t score a lot of points, but they played well, opened it up, hit a couple threes early, made them extend that zone a little bit and Eric got a chance to go to work.”
The Ghosts (9-1, 5-0 SOL American) built a double digit lead in the first quarter and never looked back.
In addition to Dixon’s 10 first-quarter points, Lucas Monroe had six — on a pair of three-pointers — and Darius Brown added five to give Abington a 22-12 advantage after eight minutes.
The lead hovered around 20 late in the second quarter before settling at 19, 39-20, as the teams went to halftime. Six different Ghosts scored in the second quarter, led by Dixon’s five points.
It was all Dixon in the third quarter. He scored 13 of the Ghosts’ 20 to send them to the fourth with a 59-27 lead.
Monroe finished with eight points. He sat the final 6:55 of the first half with three fouls and most of the fourth quarter with a comfortable Abington lead.
“We feel like we can play all 15 guys,” Grasty said. “Lucas got the three fouls and we went to the bench and they were able to sustain the lead and take it up a little more. We’re getting there. We’re starting to get there. We’re turning the corner. We want to play a little better than what we did late, but we’ll get there.”
Senior Eddie Fortescue led the way for the Trojans (5-7, 2-3 SOL American). He scored a basket in the first 10 seconds of the game to give Wiss it’s only lead and finished with a game-high 29.
“He plays hard,” Wilson said. “His motor keeps going. We’re a team that we do well when we get him good looks at the basket. I think that’s where we struggled early on. I said, ‘Guys, we can’t take the same shots we take against our Hatboros, our Upper Dublins, etc. Against Abington our best shooters have to get shots in that game and get a lion’s share of the shots. Second half I thought we executed that better.”
