ABINGTON >> Plymouth Whitemarsh’s comfortable 19-point halftime lead was gone and Abington got itself within one possession with 6:20 left in the fourth quarter of both teams’ Suburban One League Liberty Division opener Tuesday night.
The Colonials made only three baskets in the fourth quarter and scored just 10 points. Sophomore Mani Sajid made all three shots and eight of the points. The 6-foot-4, 155-pound guard made a pair of short jumpers to extend three-point leads to five, a three-pointer to make a one-point game a four-point game and grabbed a steal before splitting a pair of free throws to give his side a three-point edge with 80 seconds remaining.
PW’s defense got a pair of stops in the final minute and Jah Pendergrass-Sayles split a pair of free throws to make it a four-point game with less than 10 seconds left and the Colonials escaped with a 68-66 win at Abington Senior High School.
“We know that they’re home, it’s a rivalry game, we’re on the road,” Sajid said. “So we know they’re always going to try to fight back and comeback, but we just stayed poised in the second half. It started to get away from us a little bit, but then we grabbed it right back and we won by two.”
Sajid’s two-point jumpers gave Plymouth Whitemarsh (1-0, 1-0 SOL Liberty) a 60-55 lead with 5:10 remaining and 62-57 with 4:20 to go. His three-pointer with 3:30 remaining made it 65-61.
“To have him just go out and make big shot after big shot when it matters,” PW coach Jim Donofrio said, “that’s what I like.”
“I have a lot of confidence,” Sajid, who finished with 22 points, said. “The ball was going in for me so I just wanted to keep getting it and trust my shot.”
Sajid got off to a fast start, hitting three three-pointers and scoring 13 points in the first quarter before sitting until halftime with three fouls.
Senior guard Jaden Colzie carried the load while Sajid was on the bench. Colzie scored 27 of his game-high 30 points in the first half, including 16 of the Colonials’ 18 second-quarter points to send the defending District 1-6A champions to the locker room with a 19-point lead, 47-28.
“Colzie was unreal in the first half,” Donofrio said. “Unreal… When you have that senior guy – just one, great senior guy – on your high school team, they steady the ship. He’s got a chip on his shoulder looking for people at the higher level to respect him. He knew how to use that well tonight.”
“We became selfish offensively,” Abington coach Dan Marsh said of the big deficit through 16 minutes. “We became selfish defensively and we kind of fell apart at the seams. I just told them at halftime, ‘Look. It’s one possession at a time. This is about pride. You guys have to figure this thing out’ and we switched up our defense a little bit and were able to fight back. I’m super proud of them.
“I tell them a loss is not a loss if you learn from it and I think we learned tonight. I think we learned that we can fight. Our whole mantra this year has been that we have to rely on our defense. Our offense is going to struggle at times, but we have to rely on our defense. In the first half, we got selfish both offensively and defensively then we came together. I’m proud of them. It sucks to take an L, but it’s early and we have a lot of work to do.”
Abington (2-1, 0-1 SOL Liberty) trimmed its deficit to 10, 53-43, late in the third quarter, but a Pendergrass-Sayles floater, Colzie layup and a Sajid free throw had it back to 15, 58-43. The Ghosts made it 58-46 by the end of the quarter.
Jeremiah Lee hit a pair of free throws to open the fourth before Aaron Jones and Jayden Flournoy hit back-to-back threes to get the Ghosts within four. Lee split a pair of free throws to make it a one-possession game, 58-55, with 6:20 remaining.
Lee scored seven in the fourth, Flournoy had six and Jones five to help the Ghosts get within one twice – 62-61 and 65-64. They had opportunities to tie or take the lead, but couldn’t complete the comeback.
Lee led Abington with 19 points while Jones added 15 and Paul Glants had nine. Eleven different Ghosts scored and 13 saw playing time in the game.
“This is one of the biggest adjustments for me,” Marsh, who is in his first season coaching the boys team after coaching the girls for 18 years, said. “Having multiple kids on the bench who can all play and a lot of them can play. That’s one of my biggest challenges – getting all these guys to accept their role – but right now they’re buying in and they’re doing it.”
Plymouth Whitemarsh 68, Abington 66
Plymouth Whitemarsh 29 18 11 10 – 68
Abington 15 13 18 20 – 66
PW: Jaden Colzie 11 4-9 30, Ben Marsico 2 0-0 6, Mani Sajid 8 2-4 22, Josh Harris 0 0-0 0, Jah Pendergrass-Sayles 4 1-2 9, Terron Davis 0 0-0 0, Jack Hayes 0 0-2 0, Michael Pereira 0 0-0 0, Ehab Ahmed 0 1-2 1. Total 25 8-19 68.
Abington: Damon Rawls 0 4-4 4, Aaron Jones 7 0-0 15, Jeremiah Lee 5 9-12 19, Kamari Brasher 0 1-2 1, Paul Glants 2 5-6 9, Kellen Ingram 1 2-2 4, Jayden Flournoy 2 1-2 6, Jacob Manigault 0 1-2 1, Xander Grasty 1 0-0 2, Jon Roberts 0 0-0 0, Khalid Jenkins 1 0-0 2, Lathan Miller 1 0-0 3, David Phillips 0 0-0 0. Total 20 23-30 66.
3-point goals: PW: Jaden Colzie 4, Ben Marsico 2, Mani Sajid 4. AB: Lathan Miller, Aaron Jones, Jayden Flournoy.
![Sunoco Race Fuels, well known in the Philadelphia area and the largest manufacturer of racing gasolines in the world, will fuel Kubota High Limit Racing for the 2024 season and beyond as the “Official Racing Fuel of High Limit Racing.” Sunoco Race Fuels has 60 years of on-track victories and will now add Kubota High Limit Racing wins to its storied history. Sunoco is also the official fuel of NASCAR. “Sunoco Race Fuels is thrilled to be a part of the High Limit Racing family and proud to be the official fuel of one of the most exciting forms of […]](https://www.timesherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Ray-Evernham.jpg?w=620 "Sunoco Race Fuels, well known in the Philadelphia area and the largest manufacturer of racing gasolines in the world, will fuel Kubota High Limit Racing for the 2024 season and beyond as the “Official Racing Fuel of High Limit Racing.” Sunoco Race Fuels has 60 years of on-track victories and will now add Kubota High Limit Racing wins to its storied history. Sunoco is also the official fuel of NASCAR. “Sunoco Race Fuels is thrilled to be a part of the High Limit Racing family and proud to be the official fuel of one of the most exciting forms of […]")
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