Abington Friends rolls past ANC, building for strong finish

ABINGTON >> No team ever wants to lose, but sometimes, a setback is more beneficial than a victory.

The Abington Friends School girls basketball team hopes that’s the case with their loss to St. Basil Academy on Sunday in a showcase in Philadelphia. The Kangaroos are hoping to contend for a Friends Schools League title and a bid in the PAISSA tournament, so they’ll take an opportunity to see what they need to shore up.

If AFS can keep trimming down any rough edges, it can be that kind of team because the Roos certainly have the players to do it.

“What we’re trying to do and focus on is being a strong defensive team,” AFS coach Jeff Bond said after a 56-10 win over Academy of the New Church Tuesday. “We want to create ball pressure and get into gaps, create deflections and get the ball. When we focus on that and have all five on the court working to that end, we can be a pretty effective team.”

Abington Friends is 10-5 on the season with a critical FSL game against the Shipley School still to come. What has the Kangaroos confident is their earlier two-point setback to league-leading Friends’ Central, last year’s champion. The loss showed the Roos they can stick with the top teams and the loss to St. Basil showed them where their weaknesses are on defense.

The Roos are built to thrive in a transition when they can generate those deflections. Bond said the group has a lot speed in general, with guards Khadijah Hickson, Jade Young and Asia Turner able to push it down the floor.

“That’s where we’re at our best, when we can get out and get those steals,” Bond said. “Our team speed is pretty good and we share the ball well. We need to do a better job of finishing, we missed a few today and we need to do a better job in the paint. We have seven really solid girls that we feel are varsity starters in one way or another.”

Of course, AFS can play in a more traditional offense as well, with 6-foot-2 forward Alexa Middleton serving as the focal point. Committed to Monmouth, Middleton is a good athlete who can create steals on the defensive end and she’s a solid passer out of the post, so she adds dimensions to the AFS offense.

Casey Remolde filled a variety of roles on Tuesday, attacking the bucket on offense and jumping passing lanes on defense. Alyssa DeNofa is a long-range specialist who can open lanes with her 3-point shooting while Cheryl Remolde rounds out the top seven as a do-it-all contributor.

“That depth is good for us,” Bond said. “We have Lex in the middle who is a force for us but we have six girls who can play around her.”

AFS entered Sunday’s game on a seven-game winning streak. Sometimes winning can mask a team’s deficiencies, so playing St. Basil, a quality team, allowed Abington Friends to get a look a where they really were.

Bond said there were components in the way the Panthers scored that the Roos have to do better with. There were times where AFS lost track of some of St. Basil’s scorers and those players made them pay. If AFS is able to take loss, learn from it and win a game in February because of it, then it’s still a good experience.

But there’s only so much the coaches can do from the sideline. With several skilled juniors and seniors in the rotation, there are conduits for that to extend onto the floor. It’s what powered Abington Friends on its winning streak.

“We had a lot of good leadership,” Bond said. “They really bought into this idea of defending and that it all starts with defense and energy. We were able to do that pretty well in our last eight games. We talk about making teams uncomfortable and applying enough pressure that they aren’t able to do what they want to do. It was easy to do (Tuesday) but we need to do it in all our games.”

Bond likes the way his team is able to mix and match its parts on offense so its not too reliant on one player or one style to score the ball.

The Friends Schools League only has one game with each opponent on the schedule, so every league contest becomes that much more important. Abington Friends feels it has the players and experience to contend for and reach its goals, but the Roos can’t stay where they are. If they can keep improving, then it becomes easier to stick around longer into February.
“The top four get in so we need to get ourselves in position to be playing against Shipley for second or third place,” Bond said. “We think it will be a good game and hopefully we’ll be able to develop from now until then to be able to win.”