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Ahmin Williams (shooting) was one of five P-W reserves who scored as the Colonials took home the District 1 AAAA championship. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

By Jeff Griffith

Long before Plymouth-Whitemarsh started its road to becoming 2016 District 1 AAAA champions, it was clear the Colonials had several talented individuals on their team.

Even since summer workouts, some of the Colonials’ senior leaders like Rider commit Xzavier Malone and versatile big man Mike Lotito noticed there were multiple unheralded players that showed potential to be key to any success Plymouth-Whitemarsh hoped to have.

Naturally, almost every single one of the players that came to the floor for P-W had their shining moment in the biggest game of their careers to this point, as 10 different Colonials made their way onto the scoresheet in their 68-57 championship victory over the Chester Clippers.

“I can’t say enough about how great of a job my teammates did,” said Lotito, who fouled out with 4:11 left in the fourth quarter. “This is the ultimate high. We’ve worked so hard since November 17 officially and unofficially months before that, and for this all to come together is just so special, I can’t believe it.”

The most notable role-player to make a key statement was junior guard Matt Walker, who didn’t play a single minute of his sophomore season and saw little playing time during the current campaign.

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By Matthew De George

For the better part of a month, Marquis Collins has watched, waited and hoped.
His left arm in a sling, the senior Chester guard has ridden a conflicted ride alongside his fellow Clippers. He landed awkwardly Jan. 28 against Glen Mills, exiting as the leading scorer on a 12-6 Chester team just starting to put the pieces together, building for what they hoped to be a lengthy postseason run.
He returned eight games — eight Chester wins — later as another weapon of uncertain potency for a team that had evolved so much, without him and because of him.
“There was days watching practice, watching games, where I almost shed a tear, watching my team going out in the wars and not being able to help them,” Collins said Friday night.
Then the conversation took a turn that even the most cocksure of players couldn’t avoid: Chester committed 28 turnovers in watching Plymouth Whitemarsh run away with a 68-57 win and the District One Class AAAA title. Chester Friday resembled, in coach Larry Yarbray’s estimation, the 2-5 team that started the season and has been elevated to a teaching aid in so many huddles since.
Collins was there in December. He wasn’t for most of the 12-game winning streak, an overlooked fact in considering Chester’s postseason brilliance. Then he reappeared Friday.
So was it him, he wondered?
“I feel like as a team, we were kind of off,” Collins said. “I only practiced twice before I came back today, so our chemistry wasn’t like when I was out when they had great momentum.
“I don’t want to blame it on me, but they kind of look for me to score and take over, and that messed up the chemistry.”
The answer to Collins’ self-aware question is a resounding, no. The 6-foot-7 Delaware State commit scored 12 points, including eight in the second quarter as the Clippers (21-7) threatened to pull away. He made his only shot attempt in the third quarter and sat to start the fourth as Yarbray opted for a defense-first lineup that failed to slow high-flying Xzavier Malone (29 points) and exacerbated the turnover predicament.

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Plymouth Whitemarsh’s Xzavier Malone, right, tries to outrun Chester’s Stanley Davis to the basket in the District 1-AAAA championship at the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia on Friday, Feb. 26, 2016. (Robert Gurecki/Digital First Media)

By Ed Morlock

The Plymouth Whitemarsh boys basketball team never blinked. They trailed district power Chester by six points in the third quarter and four at the beginning of the fourth and stood their ground.

The second-seeded Colonials dominated the fourth quarter – outscoring the ninth-seeded Clippers by 15 points – and won the District One Class AAAA championship, 68-57, Friday night at the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia.

“You can’t change what you are,” PW coach Jim Donofrio said of his team playing a fast-paced game with Chester. “We know how to defend. You never blink. You’re going to go in and do what you’re supposed to do. They are Chester. They are proud and they are talented and they are tough-minded and they are the best in the state in history. You want that challenge.”

Junior Matt Walker hit a three in the first 30 seconds of the fourth to bring the Colonials within one and a minute later senior Oakley Spencer hit two free throws to give the Colonials a 50-49 lead that they would never relinquish.

It was senior Xzavier Malone, however, who put the game away. The Rider commit scored 13 of his game-high 29 points in the fourth quarter, including three dunks.

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By Tim Hindin

It took quite a sequence of events for Academy Park’s Nakim Stokes to hit the game-winning layup in Friday night’s District 1-AAAA ninth place game against Hatboro-Horsham.

With about 40 seconds left and leading by two points, all the Hatters had to do was hold the ball and take a trip to the free line to win the game. But Academy Park’s high-pressure defense forced a turnover, as it had all game, and that led to a run out lay to Stokes to tie the game.

“I think our last eight possessions, seven of them were turnovers,” Hatboro-Horsham coach Ed Enoch said. “When we had to make plays we didn’t. Give them credit, they made plays when they had to and we didn’t.”

The pressure of the Knights won again on the next possession as Stokes hit another layup very similar to the first that put Academy Park up 72-70 with seven seconds left.

“We were getting the pace going, we were getting turnovers, we were just (giving up) so many easy layups,” Academy Park coach Allen Brydges said. “I just said to my assistant coach I got to go home and watch the last 45 seconds because I don’t even know what happened.”

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By Pete Schnatz

In the postgame tranquility beneath the Liacouras Center Tuesday night, Stanley Davis required only a matter-of-fact inflection.
“Chester is back,” the senior guard said, minutes after spearheading Chester’s 74-62 triumph over Ridley in a District One Class AAAA semifinal.
Its return to the district’s elite after a one-year sabbatical is without question. And it’s fitting that one of the longest-entrenched members of the group provides the welcoming party for what the Clippers hope is a championship reintroduction.
No. 9 seed Chester will chase its 25th District One title Friday night at Temple University against No. 2 Plymouth Whitemarsh. Tipoff is at 8 p.m.
The rankings and records seem to indicate a favorite. But drill down to the teams’ cores and you may find those figures deceiving.
Since Jan. 1, Chester (20-6) has fewer losses, winning 18 of its last 19. Only the Clippers boast four double-digit postseason wins, none a particularly close scrape. Plymouth Whitemarsh (24-2), with its four-point survival against Academy Park in the second round and its one-possession revenge on Central Bucks West in the semis, can’t stake such a claim.
Their semifinal advancements contrasted sharply. Where PW suffocated Lower Merion and put them away at the free throw line in a ragged 53-42 win, Chester sailed past Ridley, never allowing the Green Raiders closer than eight points in the final 14 minutes.
The teams’ history is weighty. Plymouth Whitemarsh, which last won districts with the John Salmons-led 1998 squad, has lost in the final three times since, including last season to Abington. It dropped the final in 2010 (in overtime to Penn Wood, which it then avenged in the PIAA final) and in 2007 to Chester, 70-62.

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