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ABINGTON - It took Council Rock South more than seven minutes into Friday's Suburban One National Conference matchup against Abington until the Golden Hawks sank their first field goal. They didn't sore a single point from the field in the fourth quarter.
Most of the time, that's a recipe for disaster. But not on this night.South used a stingy defense and put together a couple big runs to jump out to a 15-point lead late in the third quarter, then relied on its skill at the foul line to withstand a furious charge by Galloping Ghosts to pull out a 50-44 win.
The Hawks made 11 trips to the foul line in the final stanza, converting 14 of 22 attempts in a quarter that saw the teams combine for 34 points.
"If you can't get field goals, free throws the next best thing," said Pat Silverthorn, who led a balanced Hawk offense with 12 points. "Every guy from the guards to forwards were hitting shots late in the game."
South went 22-for-33 for the game from the foul line, with Justin Thomas hitting 5 of 8 as part of his 11 points. And while the free-throw shooting may not have been stellar, the Hawks' defense, as usual, most certainly was.
"One thing we tell the kids should be present every game - maybe your shot doesn't fall on every possession, but you better play defense," said CR South coach John Easterly. "It keeps us in games. Even the games that sort of ran away from us at the end, we always felt we were in them because our defense was present."
That defense kept the hosts off-balance offensively for much of the night. Abington netted just eight points in each of the first two quarters. After Abington jumped out to a 7-2 lead, South scored seven of the final eight points of the first quarter to take a 9-8 lead.
Abington regained the lead on DJ McFadden's basket to open the second, but South responded when Mike Dipaolo hit one of his two three-pointers of the night to give the Hawks a lead it would never relinquish.
Of course, South had some help from an inexperienced Ghost team that forced shots, turned the ball over and made numerous mistakes throughout the game. Abington also shot 10-for-23 from the charity stripe, including a 4-for-10 effort in the fourth quarter."It's a backbreaker," said Abington senior Wes Rines, who led all scorers with 21 points. "We're averaging something like 12 turnovers a game, and they're turnovers like kicking a ball with your foot. We're a good team, we just keep shooting ourselves in the foot."
Abington first-year coach Charles Grasty echoed Rines' sentiments.
"I give a lot of credit to South," he said, "but at the same time, I feel like we let another one slip away. We're hurting ourselves with the turnovers, the missed foul shots, not playing team basketball, playing selfish, taking bad shots, shooting ourselves in the foot."
The Hawks scored nine straight points early in the second quarter, sparked by the strong efforts of Andrew Cohen, who started in place of P.J. Gallo, who missed the game due to illness. Cohen finished with seven points and nine rebounds, and played a huge part in the Hawks' success on the boards.
"One thing Abington does really well, they crash the boards," Easterly said. "One of our keys was to out-rebound them. What Andrew did tonight -- that's stepping up. And he's done that this season as well. He had a real nice game for us."
"They box out well," Grasty said. "Their bigs boxed our bigs out, crashed the boards and got a couple offensive rebounds against us."With Abington trailing by double digits late in the third quarter, the Ghosts looked to senior captain Rines. And he responded.
Rines scored 10 consecutive points for the Ghosts, including the final four points of the third quarter, as Abington cut the deficit to eight early in the fourth.
"I actually felt like I should have done that a little earlier," Rines said. "Once they came in the box-and-one (defense), I just knew, at some point in time, I've got to get the ball and I've got to score -- use my body, get the and-1s, get some points, rebounds, anything to get the team going."
Rines did just that, as the Ghosts posted 19 points in the fourth quarter after scoring 25 in the first three. A 7-3 run that included a bucket from Rines and a pair from DJ McFadden (9 points) brought the Ghosts back to within six. But the South defense held tough, and denied the Ghosts the chance at completing the comeback.
The win evens the Hawks' record at 5-5 overall (2-2 in the league) and gives them momentum heading into an always exciting matchup against Council Rock North (8-1, 4-0) on Tuesday.
"We know if we can limit our mental mistakes, limit our turnovers, we know we can match up against some of the better teams in our league," Silverthorn said.
"Abington is always very tough to play," Easterly said. "Our kids love playing in this gym, there's a great atmosphere. And coming out with a win means go into Council Rock North Tuesday night with a lot of confidence. And that's going to be an important game for us."
The Ghosts, meanwhile, fall to 4-7 overall, 0-4 in the league, and suffer another close defeat. "We didn't set the tone very well at all," Rines said. "When we attacked them in the third and fourth quarter, that's when we started scoring. But we dug ourselves into too deep of a hole.
"We need to just get under control and learn what we have to do to win. We need a winner's mentality. We need to get on a roll, and once we get some wins, I really think we'll be fine. But we haven't really tasted winning yet, we don't really know what it takes to win. We've got to find some way to get a W. We're looking anywhere from anybody --- we need points, we need defense, we need to talk on defense, we need everything. But we're not that far away, all we need is a couple wins."
Those wins won't be easy to come by in the SOL National Conference, but they're achievable. Grasty agrees that this team can get on track, but he added that the team must do so with urgency if it hopes to be able to turn around its season.
"I told the guys, the energy in the fourth quarter was good, but it's hard to come back from 15 points," he said. "We're pretty close, but it's Game 11 now. We can't keep just being close. We have to turn those types of games into wins. It feels good to be close, but we've got to turn it around. We're 4-7, we're still in the toughest league around. We're digging ourselves a hole, and we've got to get out of it immediately."
Council Rock South 9 13 14 14 - 50
Abington 8 8 9 19 - 44
Council Rock South: Justin Thomas 11; Christian Crane 7; Pat Silverthorn 12; Mike Dipaolo 6; Zach Fitzgerald 7; Andrew Cohen 7; Nick Cocco 0; Jim Ivers 0. Total: 50.
Abington: Mike Travor 5; Vincent Tranquillo 2; Wes Rines 21; Jiere Morrisey 3; Darian McFadden 9; Jordan Simmons 4; Harrell Haneef 0; Anthony Lee 0; Chris Ruhl 0. Total: 44.
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