Cheltenham turns it on in 3rd quarter, pulls away from Plymouth Whitemarsh in District 1-6A quarterfinals
CHELTENHAM >> After a tightly-contested first half Friday night against visiting Plymouth Whitemarsh, Cheltenham used an 8-0 run to tighten its grip on this District 1-6A Quarterfinal.
“The guys were able to catapult that into a lot of good plays and good basketball,” said Panthers coach Patrick Fleury. “They were sharing the ball. Moving forward, I’m very proud of our guys.”
Third-seeded Cheltenham pulled away to an impressive 52-40 victory over No. 22 PW, advancing to Tuesday’s semifinals at No. 2 Lower Merion.
The Colonials will now enter district playbacks to determine seeding for states.
The Panthers battled to a 27-23 lead over the Colonials and then made its biggest push coming out of the break.
“I think we need to have that same sense of urgency throughout the game,” Fleury said. “We need to be more assertive with what we want to do. We need to do a better job of getting to the basket and finishing.”
Rasheem Dearry led Cheltenham with a versatile game that included a trio of three-pointers and a team-high 15 points. Brandon Bush had 14 points for the Panthers and Josiah Hutson added 12.
Most impressive about Cheltenham’s performance was its defense, which shut out the Colonials for the first five minutes of the third quarter and limited their most potent weapons.
Said Dearry: “We just wanted to come out with energy, come out with explosiveness, and don’t let them get comfortable with anything.”
PW had three turnovers to start the third quarter, and Dearry and Hutson converted at the other end to get the Panthers rolling.
Dearry found Nasir Edens underneath to make it 35-23.
Dearry hit a pair of threes in the first quarter to get Cheltenham settled in and kept making key contributions throughout.
“Just doing my part,” he said, “doing what I could to help the team: scoring, rebounding, playing defense, and keeping things together.”
Zende Hubbard scored a game-high 16 points for the Colonials and Qudire Bennett added 13, but Cheltenham never allowed PW to find much traction at the offensive end.
“We were trying to make sure that we closed out possessions with rebounds. We didn’t wanna give them any open shots,” Fleury said. “We wanted all of their shots to be contested – the drives and the pullups. The biggest thing for us defensively was to communicate. I think the back side of our defense was vocal and they were the safeties for us.”
The Panthers led by at least 10 for much of the second half.
PW closed to 45-38 with two minutes to go on a layup by Hubbard, but Dearry answered at the other end for Cheltenham, his basket making it 47-38 with 1:40 to go and pointing the Panthers to victory.
Cheltenham didn’t allow a field goal in that pivotal third quarter and limited the high-powered Colonials to just a single three-pointer in the contest.
“We’re a defensive team,” Dearry said. “It scares other teams when they watch our film: they see us boxing out aggressively, grabbing boards, blocking shots, getting steals, and just playing aggressively. So that’s a good name attached to us.”
District 1-6A Quarterfinals
Cheltenham 52, Plymouth Whitemarsh 40
Plymouth Whitemarsh 12 11 4 13 – 40
Cheltenham 16 11 14 11 – 52
Plymouth Whitemarsh: Marshall Baker 0 4-9 4, Trey Jones 2 0-0 5, Taji Hubbard 1 0-0 2, Qudire Bennett 5 3-4 13, Zende Hubbard 6 4-6 16. Totals 14 11-19 40.
Cheltenham: Rasheem Dearry 5 2-4 15, Josiah Hutson 5 0-1 12, Elias Walker 1 4-5 6, Brandon Bush 7 0-1 14, Justin Savage 1 1-2 3, Nasir Edens 1 0-0 2. Totals 20 7-13 52.
3-pointers: PW-Jones; Ch-Dearry 3, Hutson 2.
