Abington & PW were winners in SOL girls’ basketball action Saturday.
PLYMOUTH WHITEMARSH 50, CENTRAL BUCKS SOUTH 47
Jordyn Thomas admits her eyes lit up when she arrived at CB South on Saturday and realized that South forward Allie Burke would not be in the lineup.
“When I got here and didn’t see her, I was like, ‘This is my game to go off and score 20 points,’” Thomas said.
The 6-foot freshman power forward did just that, torching the Titans for 22 points – 16 in a superb second half.
“My team looks for me all the time – they give me great passes,” Thomas said. “All I have to do is create that space for them to throw me the perfect pass.
“This was a lot of fun, especially being a young team. We’re all helping each other out, we’re supportive of each other, but it’s also nerveracking, especially at the end.”
Thomas is a key piece of a young Colonial squad whose lineup is comprised of mostly freshmen and sophomores, and while the absence of Burke (volleyball tournament) created a mismatch for Thomas and her Colonial teammates, the Colonials were also without a key player, 6-1 freshman Lainey Allen, who was injured in PW’s game against Hatboro-Horsham.
Thomas certainly did her part to pick up the slack. She scored on a putback to open the second half, giving the Colonials a 24-16 lead. The Titans answered with an 8-2 run that included three-pointers by Taylor Hinkle and Alexa Brodie and a basket by Mackenzie Erb, and just like that, the Titans had pulled to within one, 27-26.
Thomas completed a three-point play after scoring on a tough move on the low post, and after a Titan turnover against the press, freshman point guard Kate Flanagan found Gabby Cooper for a basket. Thomas sank 2-of-2 at the foul line, and Cooper scored at the end of a fast break to give the Colonials a 36-26 advantage. A bucket by Erb made it an eight-point game heading into the final quarter.
Anna McTamney found Thomas for an easy bucket to open the fourth quarter.
“Jordyn really stepped up,” PW coach Dan Dougherty said. “Once we saw that Allie Burke wasn’t here, we figured we’d have a mismatch somewhere.
“Jordyn was able to finish, the kids were able to find her. We were trying to force it a little bit in the first half. CB South is a team that switches a lot defensively, so we were trying to set a screen and get a mismatch, and it worked out.”
Flanagan pulled down a rebound of a Titan miss and took it coast-to-coast for the score, and when Flanagan sank one-of-two at the line with 6:50 remaining, the Colonials had their largest lead, 41-28.
Flanagan and Thomas are the lone newcomers who have played together for any length of time prior to this season.
“This is a new team,” Thomas said. “There’s a lot of freshmen and sophomores, and we’re all coming together.”
Down but not out, the Titans came roaring back. It was a 49-47 game after Brodie connected on a step-back three with 34 seconds remaining. Flanagan – with 16.9 seconds left – buried one-of-two at the foul line to put the Colonials on top 50-47. The Colonials came up with a huge steal, then misfired on the front end of a one-and-one. The Titans’ desperation shot at the buzzer fell short.
“I thought Max Leszczynski came in and really gave us some big minutes,” Dougherty said. “She had the big steal at the end – she’s the one that deflected the ball. She really gave us good minutes off the bench.”
Obviously, the game plan is to try and slow down (Alexa) Brodie. It’s like guarding James Harden. Her step-back is amazing, her ability to drive and find other kids is great. I joked with the team before the game, ‘This is what other teams had to do against Taylor O’Brien for four years.’”
“They have young kids too,” Dougherty said. “When you try and make adjustments in the middle of the game with young kids, it’s very hard.”
Dougherty also credited sophomore Gabby Cooper for her defensive effort.
“Face guarding Brodie is an exhausting job, and she did a great job,” Dougherty said. “All in all, it’s a great win. We challenged the kids. We’re hopeful to be a playoff team this year. We still have a lot of tough games left, but this was a good playoff experience. It was just a good all-around win.”
In addition to Thomas, Flanagan scored 11 points and Cooper had six.
For the Titans, Brodie and Hinkle both scored 17 points. Erb added nine points as the freshmen (Hinkle and Erb are freshman) from both sides came up big.
“We fought and battled – they’re a tough team for us to defend because of mismatches in the post and what we need to do to be successful,” South coach Beth Mattern said. “Not having Allie (Burke) in our lineup hurt us, defensively especially.
“They know how to use their height, but that’s not an excuse. You have to battle, you have to fight through it. We needed to do a better job on the boards, we needed to not turn the ball over as much. That also would have helped us be more successful.”
Plymouth Whitemarsh (14-2, 6-2 SOL) will host Springfield Township on Tuesday, and Central Bucks South (6-8, 4-3) will travel to Souderton on Friday.
Plymouth Whitemarsh 7-15-14-14 50
Central Bucks South 9-7-12-19 47
Plymouth Whitemarsh (50) – Kate Flanagan 11, Max Leszczynski 4, Sydney Kesselman 3, Gabby Cooper 6, Anna McTamney 4, Jordyn Thomas 22.
Central Bucks South (47) Taylor Hinkle 17, Mackenzie Erb 9, Kirsten Schaller 1, Alexa Brodie 17, Sofia Sonnet 3.
ABINGTON 64, GOVERNOR MIFFLIN 49
Amanda Jackson buried five three-pointers and scored a game-high 17 points in her first extended varsity minutes. With Tamia Wessels sidelined, the sophomore found herself in an expanded role, and she made the most of the opportunity.
“Tamia is out probably until our Souderton game with a concussion,” coach Dan Marsh said. “We were struggling all week with what we were going to do, and Amanda had a great game. They called her Tamia 2.0.”
The sophomore guard scored nine points in a productive first half that saw the visiting Ghosts open up a 33-24 lead.
“We knew she could shoot,” Marsh said of Jackson. “She basically filled the same spot that Tamia does for us – she’s our outside shooter to open things up for us, and she hit the open jumper.
“Hopefully, this will give her confidence because we have tough games coming up without Tamia, so somebody’s got to step it up.”
Cam Lexow also had a big day for the Ghosts. The senior guard finished with 16 points – eight in each half. She also had a pair of three-pointers. Kassondra Brown added 12 points and 26 rebounds while Khalis Whiting and Miranda Liebtag both had nine.
“It was a good test for us to go to District 3,” Marsh said. “Kassondra went to the line once. We’ve been in states enough to know this is how it goes when you come up this way, so we just told them going into the game, ‘You’re not going to get a call.’
“That’s just the way it is, and that’s why we wanted to play them.”
Abington (13-2, 7-1 SOL) will host Upper Moreland on Tuesday.
Abington 13-20-15-14 64
Governor Mifflin 9-15-12-13 49
Abington (64) – Cam Lexow 16, Kassondra Brown 12, Miranda Liebtag 9, Khalis Whiting 9, Amanda Jackson 17, Krysten Brown 1.
Governor Mifflin (49) – Vanessa Wright-Gaskins 8, Stella Mollica 10, Sydney Payne 8, Destiny White 14, Elisa Fiore 7, Kayla DelVecchio 2
WEST CHESTER EAST 47, WISSAHICKON 35
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