Recruiting Report: Rahim Ali (2020)
Winning a state championship in any sport is difficult. Doing it in back-to-back years is rare. Three-straight years? Historic. Four-straight year? Unheard of.
That’s exactly the status that 2020 Poly point guard Rahim Ali Rahim Ali 5'11" | PG Baltimore Poly | 2020 State MD is chasing. Ever since a freshman, Ali has been orchestrating the Engineers to the top of the mountain, which in this case is the 3A Class. They’ve faced a number of opponents from around the state, but none luckily enough to pull of the miracle of dethroning Poly.
This year is no different. Poly has captured another regional title to cement their spot in the Elite 8. With the new format of the brackets, they’ll welcome Frederick tomorrow at Poly for a battle starting at 1 pm to see who can punch their ticket to the Final Four at the Xfinity Center. On Thursday night they defeated City by a final score of 92-60. A score that indicates dominance from the Engineers, but shockingly it was a tied game at halftime.
A number of Poly players had great games. 2020 Justin Lewis Justin Lewis 6'8" | PF Baltimore Poly | 2020 State #49 Nation MD , 2020 Brandon Murray Brandon Murray 6'5" | SG IMG Academy | 2021 #220 Nation FL and 2022 Bryce Lindsay Bryce Lindsay 6'2" | CG St. Frances | 2022 State MD all put together solid outings. Ali on the other hand, just couldn’t get into a groove offensively. He didn’t allow that to stop him from having an impact. Ali has been around this block four times now and even if he isn’t contributing to the scoring column, his leadership is even more important in the equation of Poly playing to their potential.
“I just told them we’re good,” Ali said on what was said in the locker room during halftime. “We know that we have a lot of good players and eventually we’re going to come out on top. Our focus was to play defense and get stops then run through our offense to make sure we get scores on all possessions.”
Poly outscored City 55-23 in the final 16 minutes of play.
“The beauty of having a good team is that even when I don’t have the best game I can focus on keeping everyone else’s energy up,” Ali said. “I knew that I was struggling in the first half. I got a little better feel for the ball in the second half so I was just focusing on keeping everyone positive. I knew my teammates were with me. Everyone on this teams feeds off each other’s energy.”
Lewis paced Poly with an impressive 34 points and on many of possessions looked simply unstoppable. Lindsay found his mark from deep in the first half and Murray started finding more opportunities in the second half.
Going forward, Ali is pressed on improvements to ensure the Engineers return to the Xfinity Center.
“The two playoffs games we’ve played we were either down or it was tied after the first quarter. We have to come out better. We have to build an early lead so we don’t spend time playing from behind,” Ali told Prep Hoops.
In terms of recruitment, Ali holds offers from Siena, Towson, Boise State, Georgia State, Loyola (MD) and Wagner.
2020 Lake Clifton guard Mike Gray Mike Gray 5'10" | PG Landon | 2022 State MD recently committed to Wagner and the vibe Ali gave was that he and Gray would enjoy playing together at the next level. Ali told Prep Hoops that Wagner has been the school pursuing him most aggressively.