Abington defeated Coatesville in overtime to capture the program’s third consecutive District 1 6A title. Photos provided courtesy of Darryl Rule of J&D Photography and Kathy Leister Photography. Check back for a gallery of their photos.
#1-1 ABINGTON 74, #1-2 COATESVILLE 71 (OT)
Eric Dixon honestly thought he had more time and that's how he stayed so calm.
In a maelstrom of chaos under rim, with Coatesville putback attempts caroming off the rim, players throwing bodies out of bounds trying to get hands on the ball, passes flying to the other team and even more shots going up, Dixon wasn't worried. He even threw an emphatic block into the mix for good measure, all because he thought there was more time on the clock.
When the ball finally escaped, securely in the hands of the Ghosts' Maurice Henry, that's when Dixon looked at how much time was left.
"I really thought we had more time, if they scored I knew someone was going to score for us," Dixon said. "Once they finally missed, I felt good about it then I heard the buzzer and thought 'Okay, cool, we won.'"
Momentary lapse in time management aside, Dixon turned in one of the best games in his storied high school career Saturday night as the Ghosts added another chapter to their highly successful history at Temple's Liacouras Center. Free from the shackles of the zone defenses he's played against the past few games, Dixon responded in force with 38 points and 16 rebounds as the Ghosts won their third straight District I 6A title.
Getting it meant another war with the team Abington defeated for the first of this three-peat – second-seeded Coatesville.
The battle between the top two teams in the district seedings had been building for most of the season, with both programs rampaging through their respective schedules until Saturday. Abington had the edge in size, but the Ghosts knew the Red Raiders wouldn't be intimidated or passive because of it.
"Not that other teams are scared of us, but they came out like ‘we don’t care that you’re Abington,’” Ghosts senior Lucas Monroe said. “They got right up in our face and made us turn the ball over and they played hard. It’s Coatesville, they have some dogs over there and they play hard every time they’re on a court.”
Abington started the game on fire, building a 14-5 lead midway through the first quarter and closing on a 5-0 spurt to take a 25-12 lead. Dixon had nine in the first quarter while Monroe had pitched in with seven.
Coatesville didn't need very long to get right back in the game. Standout junior Jhamir Brickus went on a personal 8-0 run to slice the lead to five, and after a hoop by Darious Brown, Coatesville went on a 7-0 spree to tie it 29-29.
Dixon scored the last five points of the first half, giving him 20 with 10 rebounds at the break and the Ghosts barely ahead, 36-33.
"It's no surprise, I've been saying all year – he's one of the best players in the country and he showed it," Abington coach Charles Grasty said. "Every night, he brings it. Teams throw a lot of junk defenses at him, and if it's not his night, he has no problem leaning on his teammates but tonight was his night and we rode him."
In an extremely physical game, Dixon took his share of contact every time he touched the ball or tried to get a rebound. His team warm-ups bulged postgame from ice packs stuffed underneath, but as the Villanova recruit noted, he's got a week to put himself back together before the state tournament.
"It’s my last year here, playing at a public high school and being able to come down here and win for a third time straight, it’s really special,” Dixon said. “I don’t think anybody else has been able to do that around here for a while. We didn’t get here just to get here. We come down here looking to win every time and we see it as we’re this close, why stop now?”
Coatesville's relentless pressure got to the Ghosts a bit in the third quarter, and three straight backcourt turnovers by Abington allowed the Raiders to take the lead. Brickus, who scored 23 points despite heavy foul trouble, gave his squad its first lead at 43-42 and Bryant, who led Coatesville with 28, followed with a three-point play.
The four-point margin was Coatesville's largest lead of the night, but Abington didn't fall apart after its lead was erased. While the second-seeded Raiders took a 53-52 lead into the fourth quarter, Dixon put them back up when he rebounded and scored off his own missed foul shot.
"It's mutual respect between the programs, we don't necessarily like each other but they went right at us," Monroe said. "A lot of teams have sat back and tried to make us pass the ball around, they said (forget) all that. They went at us and it worked for what, about 35 minutes?"
With the clock running down to close the fourth quarter, Coatesville had a shot at the rim, but Brickus couldn't convert a potential winner at the buzzer, sending the game to overtime.
At that point, Dixon was playing with his fourth foul. He was also pretty fired up, hitting a turnaround jumper on the baseline to start overtime before Brown splashed a three to put the Ghosts up five.
That lead lasted less than a minute as Tion Holmes got a putback and Bryant converted another three-point play to lock the score 68-68 with 2:12 left.
“It took a lot of grit, at this point, it’s not really about the plays you run but how hard you play,” Monroe said. “The fourth quarter and overtime, we were going back and forth, we hit big shots and they hit big shots. The crowd was getting into it, there were a couple times with the crowd just erupting where I thought ‘wow,’ and you have to try not to let it affect you and try not to pay attention to it.”
Manir Waller, who notched eight points and 10 rebounds, found Dixon for the go-ahead score with 2:00 on the clock, then he scored off a pass from Monroe to put the Ghosts up 72-68.
Brickus answered again, hitting a three to pull within one.
Monroe, who played a terrific game with 18 points and 11 rebounds, tried to end the game loudly with a dunk off a baseline drive with 37 seconds left. Instead, Coatesville's Aaron Young stepped in and got the whistle, drawing an offensive foul and fouling Monroe out of the game.
"Right away, I felt bad and felt like I’d disappointed my teammates,” Monroe said. “It probably wasn’t a great take, but I felt like it would be a good emphasis on the ending. I knew my guys would lock it down.”
Coatesville brought the ball in, worked a little clock off, then Brickus fired from the same spot he'd just hit from with 23 seconds on the clock. This time, it didn't go and it set off a wild sequence under the basket.
A putback right under the hoop didn't go, then another tip of that miss also bounced out, all as time kept rolling off the clock.
"It was pure chaos but I was calm, which is partly my fault because I thought there was more time than there was," Dixon said. "I thought we had 14 or 15 seconds left and if they scored, so what? We'd just go down the other end and score. Well, it turns out there was only about five seconds left."
One of the Ghosts grabbed the second miss but had to hurl it back in while falling out of bounds, allowing Coatesville another chance. Dixon made sure that one had no chance, going up for the block even on his last foul and swatting the shot.
"I had four fouls, but there was no point in saving them, we’re only up one and if he makes that, the game’s probably over,” Dixon said. “If I went for it and got a foul, then he’d have to shoot free throws and it would put a little pressure on him, I wasn’t giving up an easy two points.”
Coatesville amazingly still got another chance, as Dixon's block fell to another Raiders player who threw up a hurried shot off the mark.
"It was probably the longest seven or eight seconds of my life, I was terrified,” Monroe said. “There were a couple of those layups that should have gone in but they held it down.”
At this point, the crowd was roaring and Grasty was trying to yell out to his players.
“I’m thinking ‘miss, miss, miss,’ I’m screaming ‘box out, get the rebound and get in there,’ our guys were resilient,” Grasty said. “We had Derek Sussman in there, about 5-foot-9, battling to rebound and that’s the definition of our team – we’re just going to battle and if we come out on top, we’re happy. When Lucas fouled out, nobody hung their heads, we battled and when the ball came out of there, it was a relief.”
Bryant saved the last shot, but as he tap-danced along the baseline, his toss back was picked off by Henry. Henry crossed the midcourt line then found Waller for a final bucket as the horn went off and the Abington players and fans celebrated.
“We still have more business to take care of, we want to go far in states and win a state championship but this meant a lot,” Monroe said. “We’re up there with maybe one or two other programs that have won three in a row and we’re proud of it.”
EXTRA POINTS: With his 38 points in Saturday’s win, Dixon has a school record 793 points on the season, and his 2,409 career points is also a school record…Henry had a team-high six assists. He shares the team lead in that department with 108 assists for the season…Saturday’s win was the 25th in a row for the streaking Ghosts…Abington will face Cumberland Valley, District 3’s sixth place team, in an opening round PIAA 6A contest.
Abington 25-11-16-11-11 74
Coatesville 12-21-20-10-8 71
Abington (74) – Eric Dixon 14 10-13 38, Lucas Monroe 7 4-4 18, Manir Waller 4 0-0 8, Maurice Henry 2 0-0 5, Darious Brown 2 0-0 5; TOTALS 29 14-17 74.
Coatesville (71) – Dapree Bryant 10 7-9 28, Jhamir Brickus 10 1-2 23, Tione Holmes 4 1-1 9, John Proctor 1 0-0 3, Aaron Young 2 0-1 4, Dymere Miller 2 0-0 4; TOTALS 29 9-13 71.
3-pointers: Abington – Maurice Henry, Darius Brown, Coatesville – Jhamir Brickus 2, John Proctor, Dapree Bryant.
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