Plymouth Whitemarsh defeated top-seeded Spring-Ford to capture the program’s first title since 2016. Photos provided courtesy of Larry Small and Michael Rice. Check back for a gallery of photos: https://solsports.zenfolio.com/f582224377
DISTRICT 1 6A FINAL
#3 Plymouth Whitemarsh 59, #1 Spring-Ford 54
PHILADELPHIA – It’s hard enough to get three people to agree on anything, much less three high school basketball players.
Saturday night, in a back hallway of Temple’s Liacouras Center, there was plenty of agreement between Plymouth Whitemarsh’s Qudire Bennett, Lincoln Sharpe
and Chase Coleman. The trio, vital contributors all in the Colonials’ District I 6A championship thriller against Spring-Ford, had taken a backseat in the fourth quarter.
A few yards away, Jalen Colzie stood clutching the district championship trophy that had come of it, sunglasses over his eyes, a wide smile etched across his face.
Yes, his teammates all agreed, the junior guard’s fourth quarter performance had been one to remember as the third-seeded Colonials upended top-seeded Spring-Ford 59-54 at Temple, clinching PW’s first district title since 2016.
“You were waiting for it all season,” Sharpe said. “He’s been a little on and off all season, but you knew something like that was going to happen.”
“He deserves it, he deserves it all,” Bennett added. “It was the perfect time for him, and we just clicked, we fed right off it, getting steals, foul shots - even though he did miss his foul shots at the end…”
“It was cash, that’s just J,” Coleman said. “I knew he was going to get it in the fourth quarter.”
Colzie scored 16 points, 13 of them coming in a blistering display of fourth quarter shooting that saw the electric guard go 5-of-5 from the floor including a trio of threes with the last coming right in front of the Colonials’ bench and providing a 55-50 lead with two minutes to play. Each shot that Colzie hit in the streak was crucial, as the Rams stayed step-for-step with PW in a riveting game that managed to come down to the final seconds.
Prior to the fourth, Colzie hadn’t been himself with just a 1-of-6 effort from the floor with Spring-Ford’s super-switchable matchup zone defense frustrating the Colonials. Colzie himself admitted it took the Colonials a bit longer than usual to figure out the Rams, but he wasn’t hesitating once he heated up.
“I found a rhythm with the first shot I made, my teammates kept finding me and once I made that first shot, I was good from there,” Colzie said. “I took so many shots throughout my career - I worked out so much that I feel like every shot’s going to go in, so I had the confidence to pull them and I’m happy they went in. That’s why we got the win tonight, I think.”
Colonials coach Jim Donofrio didn’t need three high schoolers to agree in order to know Colzie had that type of performance in him. The veteran PW coach, who won his second district title as the program’s head coach to go alongside the 2016 championship, has known Colzie for a long time.
As a fourth-grade camper, Colzie all but emptied Donofrio’s prize chest with a bold and a little bit brazen performance in the coach’s shooting contests. The past two years haven’t ended the way the Colzie and the Colonials have wanted, so given the chance to step up Saturday, no, it wasn’t a surprise.
“A lot of that was very personal,” Donofrio said. “We have a lot of guys who love the game. Jaden puts a lot of pressure on himself to be great, he has been a star kid since second or third grade at every level, and I saw that in him when he was at our summer camps in fourth grade.
“He took me for everything from the candy bars to the Gatorade, a pair of Jordan socks, a pair of Jordan shorts to an NBA jersey. He ran out of the building, all the kids in the camp chased him around and he came back in and I said this kid’s got something, he’s got star power and he loves the moment.
“He’s been looking for that, it’s in him and I’m so happy for him it showed up tonight on the biggest stage because he’s had the stage a few times the last couple years and I know he’d want those back.”
Colzie started the fourth quarter with a three off the left side for a 42-38 lead, also igniting a back-and forth five minutes that needed every one of his 13 points to keep the lead. The junior hit another three, this from well beyond college range, converted a reverse layup, got another bucket to go inside the arc and finished his spurt with the three in front of the bench.
Coleman would steal the ball away on the next possession, getting fouled and splitting the free throws for a 56-50 lead with 1:46 left.
Colzie again went to the hoop with 1:11 left, drawing a foul that sent him crashing hard to the court. He missed both free throws that followed, then another on a one-and-one, gripping his right shoulder during a stoppage in play.
“I got messed up on the layup right there, my shoulder went back, but hey, I still gotta make those free throws,” Colzie said. “I’m happy Q made them and that’s how we got it.”
A year ago, Colzie was in the front row of seats watching as Abby Sharpe, Erin Daley and the PW girls win their first district title. He promised himself that this year, it would be him on that court, a promise that came true.
“This is a dream come true, I feel like we’ve been waiting for this moment forever,” Colzie said. “I remember when I was in fifth grade, I still have the 2016 district champs shirt, and I would never think I’d be able to make it here and it’s just a dream come true.”
Plymouth Whitemarsh (27-2, 16-0 SOL) will host Central York, the sixth place team out of District 3, in Saturday’s opening round of the PIAA 6A Tournament.
PLYMOUTH WHITEMARSH 14 18 6 21 – 59
SPRING-FORD 14 10 10 20 – 54
PW: Jaden Colzie 6 1-5 16, Chase Coleman 6 5-6 18, Qudire Bennett 3 7-7 14, Jahseir Sayles 1 0-0 3, Lincoln Sharpe 3 0-0 6. Totals: 19 13-18 59
SF: EJ Campbell 1 3-4 5, Jacob Nguyen 6 4-4 20, Caleb Little 4 1-1 10, Tommy Kelly 1 2-2 4, Alexis Lewis 2 1-3 5, Zach Zollers 5 0-1 10. Totals: 19 11-15 54
3-pointers: PW - Colzie 3, Bennett, Coleman, Sayles; SF - Nguyen 4, Little
CHASE-DOWN BLOCK
The play of the game may have come halfway through the third quarter.
PW had seen its eight-point halftime lead completely erased by a Spring-Ford run, the Rams fighting back to tie the game 32-32 and forcing a turnover under the basket. An outlet pass sent standout Jacob Nguyen the other way, seemingly on his way to an uncontested layup and lead.
Except, it was contested - and blocked - by Coleman, who came flying up the floor and pinned the layup attempt off the backboard.
“I think he knew I was gonna block it. I practiced that yesterday, not going to lie, we were messing around, but I really did practice it,” Coleman said. “It’s going off the board, you know he’s going to put it up there so I’m going to go up and get it, I’m going to go jump and block it.”
The block was a spark, PW finding Sharpe inside for a score shortly after, followed immediately by Bennett stealing a pass and draining a three off it for a 37-32 lead.
“When Chase got that block, I was like ‘we’re going to win this game,’” Bennett said.
Coleman was fantastic on both ends for the Colonials, the junior scoring a team-best 18 points that included 13 in the first half as he helped carry the offensive load. On defense, he was all over, his quick hands and anticipation ripping away four steals and deflecting numerous other passes.
Unfortunately for Coleman and the Colonials, not every deflection led to a steal and a few even ended up aiding the Rams, but that wasn’t going to temper PW’s efforts.
“We take aggressive risks in the beginning of a game, we take chances, and we see what happens,” Donofrio said. “We only had three fouls in the first half despite going after things, but we zigged when they zagged a few times and so some of their other guys got backdoor plays but you can’t get upset, we just had to try to figure this Rubik's Cube out.”
CLASH OF STYLES
Donofrio and Spring-Ford coach Joe Dempsey go way back.
They’ve been friends for more than 40 years, Dempsey routinely bringing his teams to PW’s fall league when he coached at La Salle College High School. If anyone would know what to do against the Colonials, it would be Dempsey, who led the Rams to a PAC title and the district’s top seed in just his second season in Royersford.
“It was a tricky game to control and again, you add in that we never have really played each other, that Coach Dempsey has a whole lot of experience with the Catholic League, Neumann-Goretti and Roman Catholic and up-tempo teams, he’s watched us for years and we’ve talked for years,” Donofrio said. “That’s the art of war concept, never show the enemy everything you do or they’ll figure you out. They went in a little bit with that, but we’ve improved on defense the entire year and it came to help us tonight.”
Dempsey’s team gave the Colonials all they could handle, sophomore Jacob Nguyen a standout with 20 points including four three-point makes.
“PW, they have a gear defensively that is impressive, and they don't let you run plays, and if you can't make plays, the ball's going to fly around the rim,” Dempsey said.
Spring-Ford’s offense had counters to the Colonials’ aggressive defense, the top seed able to keep its cool with the deflections and find players that were left open or cutting to the rim for some easy makes in the first half. It was the other end of the floor where they impressed against an offense that usually scores at will.
“There has to be a reason they have 25 wins, they play a really nice matchup, they switch well, and I think all teams struggle with that,” Donofrio said. “It’s a smart thing to do in some ways, most of the sets you run are zone sets or straight man sets and trying to explain the idea to high school kids you have to invert the idea when you see a matchup with all the switching going on, it tends to become a one-on-one game.”
TEAM EFFORT
Coleman wasn’t even at Plymouth Whitemarsh last year.
Sharpe didn’t play last season to focus on baseball.
Jahseir Sayles was a bench player who saw his minutes fluctuate from game to game.
Plymouth Whitemarsh doesn’t win without any of those three or Jimmy Flowers - the only sub to see time - on Saturday.
“When I first came out to open runs, I saw they all played hard and I thought ‘we might have a team here,’” Coleman said. “I think I knew from the day we started practicing that we had a good team so we had to do our roles, figure everybody out and we could win a championship.”
Sayles used his length and quick feet to full effect on defense, guarding Nguyen, EJ Campbell and anyone else on the Rams trying to give PW trouble. He also hit a timely three, assisted by Flowers, in the second quarter.
Sharpe had six points, including the go-ahead hoop with 3:38 left in the third for a lead PW never gave back. The 6-foot-5 center added two vital rebounds in the fourth quarter, the sort of role he’s embraced all year by not needing to be a scorer.
“When everyone’s buying into their role - I’m trying to do things other people won’t - so when everyone buys into the specific role they have to do and all season as it starts to sync together, that’s when you know you have a good team coming,” Sharpe said. “I think since the start of district playoffs, we ran with that all the way here.”
Even Bennett, a 1,000-point scorer, played his role well on Saturday. He didn’t force things on offense, drew fouls, scored where he could and still put up 14 points that included a 3-of-4 finish at the foul line in the last 16 seconds.
“They were playing like a box-and-one, matchup, man, all this stuff and somebody had to take over,” Bennett said. “We’re so much better because if we’re getting played box-and-one and they gotta do the scoring, I don’t get frustrated. I can help my team and I know my time’s going to come.”
RED ALERT
The PW student section understood the assignment.
Plymouth Whitemarsh had by far the largest student turnout of any of the four games contested at Temple on Saturday, rows upon rows of red-clad fans there well before the opening tip. They were loud the entire game, even louder in the final seconds when the five players on the floor beckoned them for noise as Bennett headed to the foul line to close it out.
It’s been a memorable year for PW basketball. Donofrio won his 500th game, Bennett scored his 1,000th point and the boys won the SOL Liberty and SOL Tournament prior to Saturday’s coronation as district champion. Donfrio also made sure to mention Abby Sharpe and Erin Daley getting their 1,000th points and the girls also winning the SOL Liberty and SOL Tournament - the girls taking the boys’ spot in the front row of the student section on Saturday - and the support has been there all year.
Once he received the trophy, Colzie walked it over to his teammates then led them all over to the student section.
Thanks to their run through the playoffs, the Colonials will open the state playoffs on their home court, meaning their fans will get another chance to show up in force.
“They give us the best support I’ve seen,” Colzie said. “Our student section really pulled up tonight, That’s what we were expecting but I’m still glad they came and they helped us so much.”
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