Charles Grasty’s 250th win helps Abington close in on District 1-6A playoff berth

LOWER GWYNEDD >> Abington coach Charles Grasty won his 250th game Friday night when the Ghosts beat Suburban One League Liberty Division rival Wissahickon, 54-46, at Wissahickon High School.

Grasty is in his 13th season leading Abington’s boys basketball program. He won District 1 championships in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019 and reached the championship game in 2021.

“It’s a credit to all the guys that came through and played in our system,” Grasty said. “With everything going on they could go to this school or that school, they were able to stay and build a culture and I think that we have a good thing here at Abington. We love our community, our community loves us – they support us and travel with us. I just feel blessed that I was able to be a part of this program and come back to my alma mater and make a difference. That’s more important than winning games, but 250 – we’ll take it as a staff. It’s definitely awesome. It feels good. We started wanting to build a culture and we were fortunate enough and blessed enough to get the guys that wanted to be a part of the culture and stay in Abington. They still come back and show us love. I’m just grateful, so honored to coach at this school. I love our community.”

Not only does this win lift Grasty to a milestone, it also helps Abington’s quest for a District 1-6A playoff berth. The Ghosts (11-10, 9-6 SOL Liberty) entered Friday night ranked No. 22 in the district. The top 24 teams qualify for playoffs.

“I think we need to win (the regular season finale against Quakertown Tuesday to get in),” Grasty said. “We need to win as many as we can. We have one left. We don’t know how it works. Quakertown is playing really well and playing hard. At this point, we saw some movement that we didn’t know how it could happen, so we want to try to take care of our end of the business.”

Junior Jeremiah Lee scored a game-high 21 points in the win over Wissahickon and did most of his damage early. The guard scored 10 points in the first quarter and six in the second to help the Ghosts take a 28-20 lead into the halftime locker room.

“They were just leaving me open and I was shooting it,” Lee, who was 8-for-13 from the field and 5-for-9 from three-point range, said. “I had open shots and shot it, knocked it down. My teammates – great passes. They were getting me good shots. They were going inside-out and had me wide open for threes.”

“He’s our guy,” Grasty said. “Everybody knows that he wants to put the ball in the basket for us. He plays defense and normally guards their best player. I thought he just had that fire in his eyes tonight.”

When Lee cooled off in the third quarter, senior Josh Young took control. The forward scored seven points in the third to go along with two blocks, a rebound and an assist as the Ghosts extended their lead to 42-28.

“Josh is our glue guy,” Grasty said of Young, who finished with nine points and five rebounds. “Josh is a guy that we absolutely need. He missed a couple games with torn cartilage in his shoulder. He never complained, sat out a couple games, missed some practices and comes back and he battles every single possession. Josh is just great. We love coaching him and love having him. You see what he did for us. He’s a big piece.”

“Josh is very good,” Lee added. “He knows how to play defense, he hedges, he gets boards for us – he does everything for us. He’s an all-around player. I love playing with Josh.”

Lee gave the Ghosts an added boost going into the fourth quarter when his corner three-pointer beat the buzzer and made it a 14-point game.

“We play three or four games in a row really well and then we play a game that is not indicative of how we play basketball,” Wissahickon coach Kyle Wilson said. “In our gameplan was – don’t allow Lee to get open looks. It looked like we forgot who he was out there. He got open look after open look. That’s not been indicative of us the last few games… We have those momentary lapses where we have too many ‘my bads.’ And ‘my bads’ don’t get games won. I felt they were playing in playoff mode and we were playing a regular season game. You don’t match that energy, you’re not going to win a game with them.”

Earl Stout scored seven of his team-high 18 points in the fourth quarter for Wissahickon (10-11, 9-6 SOL Liberty). Brayden Ryan had seven of his 11 points in the fourth, too, but the Trojans never got within striking distance before the clocks showed zeroes and Abington closed out the 54-46 win.

TEAM SCHEIER

Wissahickon’s players and coaches wore t-shirts that read “Team Scheier” on the front and “Mackenzie Strong” on the back. The team was supporting junior varsity head coach Mike Scheier’s daughter, Mackenzie, who was diagnosed with leukemia a couple weeks ago.

“(The players) love (coach) Scheier and we all do,” Wilson said. “We love his daughter, Mackenzie, and we are pulling for her and praying for her and sending her all the good vibes that we can.”

Abington 54, Wissahickon 46
Abington 15 13 14 12 – 54
Wissahickon 9 11 8 18 – 46
Abington: Damon Rawls 1 4-5 6, Jeremiah Lee 8 0-5 21, Paul Glants 3 0-0 6, Kamari Brashar 2 1-2 5, Kellen Ingram 1 0-0 2, Lathan Miller 0 0-2 0, Josh Young 4 0-2 9, Aaron Jones 2 1-2 5, Jack D’Arco 0 0-0 0, Dalton Cornell 0 0-0 0, Shawn Stinton 0 0-0 0. Total 21 6-18 54.
Wissahickon: Jaylon Williams 1 1-2 3, Owen Coughlin 1 0-0 2, Andrew Slackman 0 0-0 0, Dominic Vacchiano 3 2-2 10, Earl Stout 8 0-2 18, Will Kirkpatrick 1 0-0 2, Andy Yun 0 0-0 0, Brayden Ryan 4 1-2 11, Brendan Queenan 0 0-0 0, Michael Martin 0 0-0 0. Total 18 4-8 46.
3-point goals: A: Jeremiah Lee 5, Josh Young. W: Dominic Vacchiano 2, Earl Stout 2, Brayden Ryan 2.