Abington straps up, shuts down Cumberland Valley in PIAA-6A 1st round win
NORTHAMPTON >> The pregame warm-up proved to be a bit of an omen.
As the Cumberland Valley boys basketball team shot around prior to Saturday’s PIAA 6A boys first round game with Abington, one of their shots snapped the net at Council Rock South. The Eagles didn’t take it easy on the replacement either in a scorching shooting display in the first half.
Yet for all that, they still trailed Abington at the break. When the Ghosts came back out, they were done playing around.
Led by 24-point double-doubles from Eric Dixon and Lucas Monroe, Abington grounded the Eagles 69-44 to win their state playoff opener Saturday evening, the Ghosts’ 26th straight victory.
“It’s kind of funny because coming into the game we thought one of their weaknesses was their shooting, so we thought we could try to play it closer and force them to shoot threes and it, obviously, wasn’t working,” Monroe said. “In the second half, we strapped down a lot better. We kind of threw out the gameplan and decided to get out on their shooters. Eric did a great job of helping and guys were stepping in.”
A fourth meeting with Pennridge awaits in the second round after the Rams staved off District 12 third-place finisher Lincoln 49-45. The time and location will be announced Sunday.
Cumberland Valley couldn’t have asked for a better first half offensively. The Eagles, who came in as the District III sixth seed, shot 7-of-12 from 3-point range in the first half. Three players – Ethan Levis, Harris Vorwald and Dylan Bazulka, were a combined 7-of-8 from beyond the arc.
The shooting certainly seemed to catch Abington off guard and Cumberland Valley’s execution was very crisp. CV was able to pass out of Abington’s traps and find the next open man to launch those open threes. Back-to-back Bazulka treys put the Eagles up 23-20 to start the second quarter.
“They were on fire, they made shots and came out with a lot of energy,” Ghosts coach Charles Grasty said. “I thought our rotations were bad. We tried to double and speed them up a little bit, our rotations were slow and they hit the open man and knocked down shots.”
What the Eagles didn’t have was Dixon and Monroe. Dixon converted a three-point play the hard way to put Abington back up 26-23 and the three-time District I champions didn’t trail again although they weren’t able to put CV away at the break.
The Eagles went nearly four minutes in the second without a bucket, but all four field goals they did have were from behind the line, so they trailed just 36-29 at halftime.
Monroe, who was a monster on the glass, made sure they weren’t going to stick around much longer after intermission. The Penn-bound senior had 15 rebounds, eight of them on the offensive end and played mostly in a high post position in scoring his 24 points.
“I felt we could hurt them with our size and our length so we had to put him in the high post,” Grasty said. “We let Eric work the low post and (Lucas) was picking his spots. Look how athletic he is, he’s 6-7, he’s long and he can get those boards.”
CV played Abington in a zone, not a surprise to anyone who’s watched Abington play the last month of the season. It didn’t stop Dixon from putting his own considerable imprint on the game.
Dixon added 12 rebounds to his 24 points, surpassing 1,000 career rebounds at Abington in doing so. He and Monroe worked really well in the high-low and Dixon had seven offensive boards of his own, cleaning up plenty of misses.
“It’s been happening my four years here and it’s something I’ve gotten used to over time,” Dixon said. “I try to read the defense and double-teams, see where they’re coming from at first then attack later on.”
A three-point play by Dixon kicked off the game-changing run for Abington in the third quarter. The Ghosts went on a 15-1 jaunt, with Monroe throwing down an emphatic dunk near the end of it to take a 51-32 edge.
The traps stopped in the second half as the Ghosts went straight man-to-man and just decided the Eagles weren’t getting any more clean looks at three. If Cumberland Valley was going to win, it was going to have to beat the Ghosts off the dribble and with Dixon buffering behind them, the Ghosts wouldn’t let CV do it.
Cumberland Valley shot just 1-of-7 from three in the second half.
“We take pride in our man-to-man defense,” Monroe said. “We take pride in being able to play defense and strap guys up so I think we went back to that. We’ve done it all year, and it worked in the second half.”
Monroe felt the second half, which also featured a 9-2 run to end the starters’ time on the floor, was typical of what the Ghosts have done this season. The defense amped up, it turned into open floor offense and Abington at the other end.
Darious Brown added 10 points for the Ghosts, Manir Waller had five points and five rebounds and Maurice Henry had seven assists to go with solid defense from all three.
Abington has eyes on a run to Hershey, and Pennridge will be a formidable test, but the Ghosts are confident in their 1-2 punch of Monroe and Dixon getting it done.
“We complement each other well,” Dixon said. “Him being a 6-7 guard, he’s hard to stop on his own. You put me on the block, or both of us at the same time, I feel like it’s a difficult task for a defense.”
ABINGTON 20 16 17 16 – 69
CUMBERLAND VALLEY 17 12 8 7 – 44
A: Eric Dixon 10 4-4 24, Lucas Monroe 10 4-6 24, Darious Brown 3 2-2 10, Manir Waller 2 1-2 5, Maurice Henry 0 1-2 1, Howie Burrell 0 2-2 2, Jason Scott 1 0-0 3, Nick Zappone 0 0-1 0. Totals: 26 14-19 69
CV: Harris Vorwald 6 0-1 15, Dylan Bazulka 4 1-2 12, Ethan Levis 4 0-0 10, Ty Banach 1 0-0 2, Ben Drury 1 0-0 2, Chris Wickens 1 0-0 2, Max Kreusky 0 1-2 1. Totals: 17 2-5 44
3-pointers: A – Brown 2; CV – Bazulka 3, Vorwald 3, Levis 2
