Author: delcohoops

By Matthew DeGeorge

Tyreese Watson doesn’t let the question finish before answering. With Bonner & Prendergast having playing just one game in 20 days, has the intensity in practices ramped up?

“Yes. We’re in the gym every day,” the junior guard said this week. “We’re still playing against each other. We’re in practice and competing, so it’s not like we’re just sitting out waiting for the next game.”

In the six weeks from Jan. 4 to the Catholic League quarterfinal loss to Neumann-Goretti Feb. 15, the Friars played 14 games. In three weeks since, they’ve played one, the District 12 Class 4A final. So to ward off rust ahead of Friday’s states opener against Littlestown (7 p.m., St. Joseph’s Prep), Bonner has had to generate its own momentum.

Watson is as prepared as any. A knee injury ended his sophomore season early, missing the Friars’ run to the Class 5A semifinals. He’s eager to be part of this year’s title chase.

“I learned from being out watching, it’s been me being able to see what openings I could have on the court, when I can do on the court and off the court,” Watson said. “It has made me better as a person, too, sitting out and watching my guys play.”

Last year’s journey ended in overtime to eventual state champ Abington Heights. In learning from that disappointment, the Friars (18-5) are 4-0 in overtime this season, including a 59-57 win over reigning PIAA 4A champion Imhotep Charter in the district final.

(click on this link for more playoff game stories)

By Matt Smith

Audrey Rosenblum is missing softball practice, but she finds time to get some hacks in after school.

“Sometimes I hit for about 15 minutes before basketball practice,” the Radnor senior guard said. “But there’s a no-practice rule when you’re in states.”

Rosenblum is the only softball player on the girls basketball team at Radnor (20-6), which is returning to a PIAA tournament for the fourth time in six years.

“It’s sad to think it’s almost over. Our fourth-grade team, the Radnor Rush, has been together all the way through, especially the three of us seniors (Rosenblum, Holly Holtsberg, Cara Camposano). Going into the last game, and now, we feel that we have nothing to lose,” Rosenblum said. “It could be the last time we go out there together, so we don’t want to go out there without a fight.”

Most of “RGB” is comprised of lacrosse players, including junior forward Ellie Mueller, who recently eclipsed the 1,000-point mark for her career.

“Everything since the first round of districts until now has been extra,” Mueller said. “Everyone has their spring sports we should be at right now, but we’re all here in the gym and loving it, while everyone else is practicing outside in the cold. … It’s really exciting.”

(click on this link for more playoff game stories)

By Matthew DeGeorge

R.C. Kehoe was picking up his son from school when he swung by the gym at Archbishop Carroll to say a quick hello to Paul Romanczuk.

It was the fall of 2016, and Kehoe’s son, Tyler, had just transferred in for his sophomore year. Romanczuk was then coaching boys basketball, including a particular freshman who connected them both.

“Paul grabbed me and said, ‘you know the big kid over there. That’s Tairi,’” Kehoe recalled this week. “And I was like, wow. I hadn’t seen him really since he was born because Lari was traveling so much. It was a surreal moment. It was like wow, I don’t know if there any words to describe the feeling I had.”

Tairi Ketner is living proof of the uncanny connections that the Philadelphia Catholic League propagates. The junior forward at Carroll is following in the footsteps of his father, the late Lari Ketner, a standout at UMass who played in the NBA. In his days at Roman Catholic, Lari was Kehoe’s teammate, Romanczuk’s opponent, and eventually a close friend to both. And the chance to see Tairi blossom for the Patriots, who start the PIAA Class 4A tournament Friday night against Allentown Central Catholic, transcends the league’s parochial rivalries.

Tairi is the oldest child of Lari, who died in 2014 at age 37 after a battle with colon cancer. The last name holds weight in the Catholic League, a legacy Tairi is proud to carry.

(click on this link for the full story)

 

By Matt Smith

When the PIAA expanded its enrollment classifications from four to six in October 2015, there was a polarizing response.

Although proponents of the system cited growing competitive imbalance among “big” and “small” schools, detractors believed that adding two classes was completely unnecessary.

The argument remains to this day. There are too many teams competing to win too many titles.

A football team with a 3-7 record that sneaks into the tournament as the final seed has no business facing an undefeated team in the first round of the Class 5A playoffs. That doesn’t seem very competitively balanced, does it?

The record disparities are more glaring in other sports. Take girls basketball, for example. In this year’s District 1 Class 2A tournament, Sacred Heart Academy of Bryn Mawr, which had a very respectable 13-8 record in the regular season, won the the title by a score of 51-15.  They were so far better than the competition. The rest of that tournament field consisted of Dock Mennonite (6-12), Delco Christian (2-20) and Bristol (1-18).

(click on this link for the full story)

By Matthew DeGeorge

POINTS

Christian Ray, Haverford School 23.3
Vinny DeAngelo, Sun Valley 23.0
Isaiah Wong, Bonner & Prendergast 22.8
Matt Dade, Episcopal Academy 20.4
Karell Watkins, Chester 19.9
Malcolm Williams, Penncrest 18.4
Enoch Clark, Ridley 17.3
Aaron Thompson, Glen Mills 17.2
Tommy Gardler, Marple Newtown 17.2
Alex Capitano, Episcopal Academy 16.4
Greg Vlassopoulos, Garnet Valley 15.7
Tehron Phillips, Christian Academy 15.1
Jackson Piotrowski, Delco Christian 14.8
Davantae Smith, Penn Wood 14.7
Jameer Nelson, Jr., Haverford School 14.7

(click on this link for all the top scorers, 3points scorers, and free-throw percentages)

By Delcohoops.com Staff

We are very fortunate to have 13 Delco High School teams competing in the PIAA State Championship playoffs. It certainly makes Delaware County the leader in high school basketball. However, it can be very confusing to keep up with the teams, their games, dates, times, etc.

While our pages are primarily following Boy’s basketball we are now including the Girl’s in the playoff schedules and articles through the end of the playoffs.

In an effort to make it a bit easier we have two ways of viewing the contests.  The easiest is to go to our Schedule page.  There you will find all playoff games involving Delco teams listed by date and then by time.  Locations of the game are also shown.  All games are played at neutral sites and some are quite a distance from Delaware County. This is also where you can see which game(s) we will be broadcasting.

The second, more complete picture, can be found by the PIAA State Championship logo that appears on the top right sidebar of this page. That will take you to a page listing all FULL brackets where a Delco team is still contending.  Once a bracket no longer has a Delco team competing (elimination) we will no long post the bracket.

On a final note, your Delcohoops.com broadcast team had a terrific day yesterday covering three of the four District One finals.  Two of those finals involved a Delco team: Garnet Valley (girls) and Sun Valley.  Both won their games and titles.  However the 6A boy’s game was possibly one of the most thrilling games and finishes we have ever witnessed and took place in front of a crowd of 7,000 die-hard fans.  We have posted the 2-minute call by our terrific Play-by-play announcer Dave Burman as he calls the final second of the first overtime period.  Enjoy!

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By Matt Smith

Steve Maloney heard the questions when he signed on five years ago to coach the Sun Valley boys basketball program.

What was he thinking?

Never mind that Sun Valley is his alma mater, Maloney was tasked with rebuilding a program from the ground up.

“I had people tell me, ‘Why are you taking that job?'” Maloney said. “I had a nice assistant’s job at Strath Haven under (Tom) Dougherty. But I took the job.”

Maloney wanted the challenge because he knew what was around the corner. He saw the potential of several middle school players at the time, who today are responsible for leading the program to a piece of the Ches-Mont League title and, after Saturday’s 65-54 win over West Chester East, its first District 1 championship.

“There was an energy resurgence back into the program,” Maloney said. “We knew this (senior class) had a chance to be good, but we didn’t know we’d be wearing gold medals around our neck. “

Those now-senior players are Lance Stone, Vinny DeAngelo, Marvin Freeman and Isaac Kennon. All four were in the starting lineup at Temple University’s Liacouras Center and did what Maloney never thought was possible five years ago.

(click on this link for the full story)

Webmaster’s note: The PIAA District 1 –  5A Championship game between Sun Valley and W.C. East was our Game-of-the-Week and can be heard in its entirety below or on our Archived Broadcasts link listed in the menu at the top of our page.

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By Matt Smith

Garnet Valley coach Joe Woods likes to remind his players that fast starts are very important.

The cliche is you can’t win a game in the first quarter, but you sure can lose it.

“Our only loss this year, to Villa Maria, was a Saturday afternoon after a Friday night game and we weren’t ready to play. We got down 11-0 and we lost by 11,” Woods said Saturday. “So, I’ve been preaching all year: you lose games in the first quarter, are you going to let it happen? Good teams are going to jump you. We want to jump teams.”

The Jaguars won the program’s first District 1 championship Saturday at Temple University’s Liacouras Center, 63-53, over Neshaminy. Twenty of the first 23 points were scored by Garnet Valley.

That’s how you start a game.

(click on this link for the full story)

Webmaster’s note: The PIAA District 1 –  6A Championship Girl’s game between Garnet Valley and Neshaminy was our Game-of-the-Week and can be heard in its entirety below or on our Archived Broadcasts link listed in the menu at the top of our page.

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By Tom Ignudo

Abington senior guard Lucas Monroe was terrified.

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By Matthew DeGeorge

Sun Valley coach Steve Maloney and his players weren’t happy when they left the court against West Chester East on Jan. 5.

After leading for long stretches, they let the game slip away in double-overtime, their third loss in four games after an 8-0 start.

But if the disappointment of that night doesn’t add any fuel to the fire of Saturday’s rematch in the District 1 Class 5A final, it’s only because the Vanguards don’t lack for motivation.

“I think it helped us,” Maloney said Friday. “We were able to see where we made mistakes before. We were up five or seven the whole game, made some mistakes on our end, both offensively and defensively, and they capitalized on it.”

The top-seeded Vikings (21-5) and No. 6 Sun Valley (18-7) square off at 2 p.m. at Temple. For both teams, reaching the Liacouras Center was among the primary season goals. Sun Valley’s path has included what fifth-year coach Maloney calls a “chip on their shoulders” stemming from his first team going 4-17.

(click on this link for the full story)

Webmaster’s note: Delcohoops.com will audio broadcast LIVE today’s Sun Valley PIAA District One’s championship game.  Our broadcast begins at 1:45 PM.