Abington dominates 4th quarter in win over Plymouth Whitemarsh

ABINGTON >> Abington came to life in the fourth quarter.

After trailing for the entire first half, taking a brief third-quarter lead and drawing even with eight minutes remaining, the Ghosts dominated Plymouth Whitemarsh in the fourth quarter Tuesday night.

Abington opened the fourth with a 12-1 run and carried the momentum to a 50-41 Suburban One League American Conference win over the Colonials at Abington Senior High School.

The Ghosts (10-9, 8-3 SOL American) got it done on both ends in crunch time. Their 17 fourth-quarter points were their highest in any quarter of the game and the defense forced seven turnovers.

“We were able to turn them over,” Abington coach Charles Grasty said. “We had something like 12 steals for the game. I thought we came out, put a little pressure on them, switched up some of our looks. We were able to take the ball out of (PW senior Caelin) Peters’ hands. He’s an extremely good point guard. We wanted to take the ball out of his hands a little bit and force someone else to bring it up. We were able to get some turnovers in that fourth quarter.”

“Coach told us to bring a lot more energy to this game,” Abington senior Manir Waller added. “We didn’t come out slow, but we didn’t come out as up-beat as we should have. He just told us to come out, play with a lot of energy, get it on the defensive end first and everything on offense will work itself out. He told us to rebound, push the ball and get easy buckets.”

Waller scored to give Abington the lead for good, 35-33, on the first possession of the fourth and found Caleb Baker on the following possession to double their advantage to four. After PW’s Jayden Glover split a pair of free throws, the Ghosts scored eight straight points, Baker hit two foul shots before Oreck Frazier, Waller and Baker himself made baskets to extend the lead to 11, 45-34, with five minutes left.

The Colonials (8-11, 6-5 SOL American) clawed back to within five thanks to a pair of Luke DiCianno free throws, a Ray Tomassetti three and a Peters runner with 1:40 left. They had the ball with a chance to cut their deficit to one possession, but Abington’s Frazier grabbed a steal and took it for a layup to bring the lead back to seven, 48-41, with 1:25 to go.

Baker added another basket in the final minute to give the Ghosts a 50-41 win.

Plymouth Whitemarsh scored the first seven points of the game and held an 18-9 lead after the first quarter.

Abington cut its deficit to two, 20-18, in the middle of the second quarter, but the Colonials finished the half with a 24-20 lead.

The Ghosts tied the game at 26 before taking their first lead, 28-26, halfway through the third frame. The teams went back-and-forth until PW tied the game at 33 heading to the fourth.

“It’s a really, really challenging team to try to figure out what we are,” PW coach Jim Donofrio said, “challenging team to figure out how to push buttons with them. Right now we’re trying to push the buttons on who wants to make big plays in big moments, who is confident to take the reins. We were obviously defending fine. You’re in one of those defensive wars, both teams have obviously improved their defense over the last month and you’re 33-all. It looked like in that regard when two teams that are in that upper echelon of defensive intensity. Then our guys just seem to have an amazing amnesia or forgetfulness that you have an opportunity to start the game to really go up. You still have a nice lead. Obviously basketball is a game of runs. They’re going to punch back. We just don’t seem to have a raise when the other team has a raise.

“We come out with the right attitude, the right approach, but we don’t — there’s this look in the eyes of fear, there’s a look in the eyes of uncertainty, of not wanting to make a mistake. You’re using a lot of timeouts to rebuild confidence or give approval for something and it goes right out and works in the opposite direction. We’re just not on all cylinders in all these games against solid opponents. It’s a hard thing to put your finger on. They practice hard. They put in a lot of time. They stay together. They’re tight knit. There’s a lot of good things, but trying to transfer all of that positive energy into performance when it matters is something you have to grow in to. We’re running out of games to do that.”

Abington entered the game No. 19 in the District 1-6A rankings. The top 24 qualify for postseason play.

“It was important,” Grasty said. “We let our guys know that PW is going to come and play hard. Coach Donofrio gets his guys to play hard every year. Right now, with the team we had earlier in the year and the inexperience we had earlier in the year, we figured later in the year we’d be playing a little better. I think we’re playing better. We were at 19, but we don’t know how many points we’re going to get. We just want to take each game one at a time and try to win them. See where we can end up.”

PW sat at No. 25 entering Tuesday night.

“It’s such a weird district,” Donofrio said. “It’s such an odd year of .500 and less teams and changes every game. At Cheltenham and at Abington was going to be a challenge anyway. You’re in two wars and you do a lot of good things in both games and the home team wins. We have to go home Friday night and be in a mood. We have to set a goal to win our last three and if you’re .500 in this district who knows what that means? You could be a 20 seed.”

Abington’s Baker scored a game-high 19 points. Waller and Frazier joined him in double figures with 11 points apiece.

DiCianno led the Colonials with 15 points and Peters added seven.