Chester’s Ahrod Carter is pumped after scoring in the third quarter of the District One Class AAAA semifinal at Temple University’s Liacouras Center. The No. 9 Clippers answered coach Larry Yarbray’s call for improved defense and defeated No. 3 Ridley, 74-62, to advance to the district final Friday night. PETE BANNAN-DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA
By Rob Parent
So in expertly assessing a team that plays only a short ride away up I-95, Chester coach Larry Yarbray summed up his battle plan Tuesday night quite succinctly.
“We had to pick our poison,” he said.
The Clippers, who came in a No. 9 seed in the District One Class AAAA tournament, essentially the same team that fell out in the first playback of last year’s district tourney to Coatesville, are one win away from a championship after a 74-62 semifinal victory over one of Ridley’s best-ever basketball teams.
What Yarbray has helped draw from his usual stocked cupboard of talent and athleticism, however, is what he, predecessor Fred Pickett and his old coach Alonzo Lewis so often found … a complex answer on defense. As applied by Yarbray on this night, they spent the game frustrating Ridley scorer Brett Foster, but couldn’t prevent him from getting his usual gaggle of points.
What the Green Raiders couldn’t do was get Foster any help. And like so many important Chester High basketball games over so many years, the Clippers simply picked the right poison for the job.