Month: March 2018

We began this modest endeavor in December, 2013 after operating Havenfootball.net for seven years.  We had the expertise in both web site operations and audio broadcasting and thought we could promote Delaware County high school basketball.  The high school basketball season starts in December and ends in March.  It is simply amazing when you consider the season runs for about 12 weeks and we’re getting about 150,000 hits each season.  Yes, we cover 24 high schools which represent every high school in the county.  We rely on the Daily Times, City of Basketball Love, Philly.com and other web sites in bringing you all the hoops news for these 24 schools. 

Our Game-of-the-Week broadcast has grown and become a staple for high school hoops fans as we try our best to get around to a large variety of schools and bring our listeners the most interesting games.

Let’s not forget our loyal sponsors who make all this possible.  Our web site as well as our LIVE broadcasts and the archives are offered completely free of charge.  It costs more than $3000 annually to operate this site and our sponsors pick up every dime!  Please take a look at the right side of our pages and visit these fine businesses and make sure you mention that you saw them on Delcohoops.com.

All of us here at Delcohoops.com are delighted to have such a large audience.  It is a testament to the commitment of high school basketball fans in Delaware County.  We hope you’ve enjoyed reading and listening to our pages and broadcasts as much as we’ve enjoyed bringing them to you!

By Aaron Carter

The PIAA quarterfinals will have several good matchups involving Philadelphia-area teams.

I saw Baylor-Carroll for the first time Tuesday at Reading when he scored 25 points on 9-of-20 shooting in the Spartans’ 69-61 win against Bishop Shanahan.

Baylor-Carroll, likely a sub-6-footer, is a slippery ball handler with a penchant for pull-up jumpers and step-back three-pointers.

Against the Eagles, he hit 5 of 12 attempts from behind the three-point line and added five rebounds and three steals.

The Spartans, however, are a balanced team with senior 6-foot-5 forward Pedro Rodriguez, who, despite several missed layups, also scored 25 points for the District 3 champs on Tuesday.

(click on this link for the full story)

 

By CoBL Staff

Here’s a look at Friday’s games featuring area teams, as well as a couple others to watch (district-seed, record in parenthesis):

Class 5A
Bonner-Prendergast (12-1, 24-4) vs. Allentown Central Catholic (11-1, 25-4)
Geigle Complex, Reading, 7:30 PM
Back in the state quarterfinals for the first time since four-time all-state choice Muhammad Ali Abdur-Rahkman was still in ACC duds (2014) and not yet in a Michigan uniform vying for Big Ten and NCAA championships, Dennis Csensits’ Vikings’ needed two overtimes to squeeze past Dallas 61-59 in Tuesday’s second round. Chad Kratzer’s two free throws with 5.7 seconds remaining provided the game-winning points and pushed the East Penn Conference squad another round deeper. Seniors Jay Vaughan and Keeshawn Kellman netted 15 points apiece to lead ACC, while the 6-1 Kratzer wound up with 11. The 6-8 Kellman, headed for prep school, added 10 rebounds. Balanced up and down the lineup — ACC has six players averaging between 7.5 and 12.6 points per outing — these guys will dial it up from deep. Nick Filchner (9.6 ppg), a 6-3 sophomore, has canned a team-high 3-balls, while the 6-0 Vaughan (10.9) has pocketed 58 and 5-10 senior Dat Lambert (12.6) has knocked down 57. Lambert was bugged by foul issues in Tuesday’s second-round skirmish and only netted three points. While Kellman (8.9) works almost exclusively in the paint, ACC’s other perimeter threats include 6-3 senior Jordan McChristian (7.7 ppg/36 treys), 5-10 junior Sam Vaughan (2.0 ppg/15 treys) and Kratzer (7.5 ppg/12 treys). Kevin Kern, a 6-4 senior, lends help inside.

(click on this link for all 7 game reviews)

By Todd Barley

For the better part of my adult life I have made a living broadcasting athletics events at every level of competition and all over the country. What I witnessed at CD East last night in a girls basketball playoff game is the single biggest assault on competition in my many years of covering sports.

As you continue to read this, keep in mind this is not an attack up on a student athlete but the system and adult “leaders” who allow these situations to occur.

The Neumann-Goretti girls basketball team is a very talented team with tremendous players. However, how many of those players actually reside within the normal geographic boundaries for a school district?

One player actually played her first game with the Saints last night after enrolling at the school in recent weeks. What is most troubling is the fact she was already playing for Hampton Phoebus High School in Virginia and is the reining Player of the Year for that area according to a local newspaper account.

She left Phoebus with four games remaining to enroll at Neumann-Goretti. According to her mother who is quoted in the same article the school recently accepted her for admission. Mom didn’t wait, sending daughter to Philadelphia for academics. She is also quoted as saying the move was for academics.

The admission timing and academic quotes just don’s pass muster with me for several reasons.

(click on this link for the full story)

By Ryan Brennan

In a game that featured a 51-point scorer, a 36-point scorer and a 21-point scorer, it was a put-back layup attempt from an unlikely source that would prove to be the difference in Neshaminy and Lower Merion’s double overtime thriller Wednesday night.

Chris Arcidiacono was outstanding all game for Neshaminy finishing with a game-high and school record 51 points, but it was Greg Deluca’s offensive rebound and subsequent layup (his only made field goal of the night) that made him the hero of the game.

“I only got one but I sure as hell made it count,” Deluca said, “I was struggling with the shot and getting down on myself during the game, but I knew I had to just keep going and one would fall and one did fall.”

Trailing by one in the dwindling seconds of the second overtime period, Neshaminy had the ball in the hands of their star, Arcidiacono. He drove right but was unable to finish a contest layup. After the ball was juggled by multiple Neshaminy and Lower Merion players it wound up in the hands of Deluca who converted the layup attempt and sent Neshaminy into the PIAA 6A state quarterfinals with an  88-87 victory.

(click on this link for the full story)

By Rich Flanagan

Brian Randolph III could sense it.He and the Chester Clippers trailed by one point with less then 10 seconds to play. A miss off of a one-and-one and he knew the ball was going to be in his hands with an opportunity to win it. He had practiced this time and time again. The crowd’s cheer had grown immensely during Chester’s comeback and it was going to reach its apex once he sealed the game.

Unfortunately, the crowd noise that greeted him came from the Abington Heights faithful.

Randolph’s missed layup as time expired lifted Abington Heights to a 49-48 victory over Chester in the second round of the PIAA Class 5A Tournament at Liberty High School.

The Comets ended the Clippers season for the second year in a row in the same gym. Last year, Abington Heights pulled out a five-point win in double overtime of the state quarterfinals, and this game had a similar atmosphere.

After the Comets’ Jackson Danzig stepped to the line and missed the front end of a one-and-one with 12.1 seconds remaining, Karell Watkins secured one of his seven rebounds and made an outlet pass to Randolph. The 6-3 senior guard did the only thing any player with that much confidence fueled by a ferocious comeback would do: Drive straight to the hole to win it.

(click on this link for the full story)

Webmaster’s note: The Abington Heights vs Chester PIAA 5A Round 2 playoff game was our Game-of-the-Week and can be heard on our Archives link by clicking on the player below:

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By Bob Grotz

A few minutes from the Shady Maple, where the all-you-can-eat smorgasbord can put a smile on the sourest faces, Penncrest was living the basketball dream.

The Lions were doing just about everything right in their second round PIAA Class 5A tournament game with Northeastern. They owned a 16-point lead in the first minute of the fourth quarter at Garden Spot High, dead scoreboard bulbs notwithstanding.
And then it happened.

The Bobcats erupted for 32 points, much of it off full-court trapping pressure, to secure a 63-60 victory and a date with Abington Heights in the quarterfinals.

“We picked a very bad time to play our worst quarter of basketball in two years,” Lions coach Mike Doyle said. “Give them credit. We didn’t do what we normally do. I told our guys during a timeout that this style we were playing against was in our wheelhouse. Teams have tried to speed us out and get us out of comfort zone. And we’ve responded for two years. And we came up eight minutes short.”

The Lions (26-4) lost despite a game-high 27 points by senior Tyler Norwood, who the Bobcats kept away from the ball for a chunk of the final frame. With a few seconds left, the Lions got it to Norwood for a last shot. The 50-footer hit the back of the rim.

(click on this link for the full story)

By Bruce Adams

Four days after earning their first PIAA tournament win in program history, Bonner & Prendergast’s boys revealed themselves as viable state contenders via a 93-73 victory over William Penn York in the second round of the PIAA Class 5A tournament Tuesday night at the Geigle Complex.

With the victory, the District 12 champions (24-4) now will face District 11 champs Allentown Central Catholic (25-4) in the state quarterfinals Friday. Allentown CC edged Dallas, the second seed from District 2, 61-59, in double overtime Tuesday.

Against William Penn, the Friars relied on a red-hot second quarter to make the difference, outscoring their opponent 25-10. Speaking of scoring, Bonner & Prendie’s 6-foot-3 junior guard Isaiah Wong followed up his great performance last Friday night against New Oxford (22 points, 12 rebounds, seven steals) with a 32-point effort Tuesday.

(click on this link for the full story)

 

By Michael Bullock

A. J. Hoggard wasn’t worried, nervous or even anxious.

Didn’t matter that Archbishop Carroll’s confident and remarkably talented sophomore guard was standing on the foul line with just a few tense seconds remaining in a single-possession contest that had been see-sawing back and forth for the better part of an hour.

Hoggard was right where he wanted to be under those circumstances.

On the free-throw stripe with the outcome of an all-or-nothing scrap riding on what he did in that particular moment — or didn’t do — with half the gymnasium hooting and hollering at him and the other half nibbling on their fingers and leaving little more than a single knuckle.

“That’s what I live for,” Hoggard admitted. “This is what you live for growing up playing basketball. You want to be put in pressure situations that you can thrive in.

“And tonight I just happened to be in a situation that I love to be in.”

(click on this link for the full story)

 

By COBL Staff

Abington Heights (2-1, 23-3) vs. Chester (1-4, 19-8) at Bethlehem Liberty HS, 8
While these highly successful programs collided in last year’s state quarterfinals at the same locale — Abington Heights utilized just five guys in a 65-60 victory that needed two overtimes to settle — Ken Bianchi’s District 2 champs are heading into Tuesday’s scrap after using a productive third quarter to pull away to a 75-46 triumph over Garden Spot. Jackson Danzig, George Tinsley, Jack Nealon and Corey Perkins combined for 59 points as the Comets booked their seventh straight victory. Tinsley, a 6-5 junior, also stuffed 13 rebounds and nine assists into his crowded stat line. As for Chester, 6-4 soph Karell Watkins hopped off the bench and popped a double-double (20 points/10 rebounds) as Keith Taylor’s Clippers pounded out a 61-47 victory over Martin Luther King. Eight of Watkins’ points arrived in the second quarter, as Chester opened a 23-19 halftime lead. Brian Watkins III chipped in 14 points and Rahmaad DeJarnette added nine as first-year skipper Taylor logged his first state playoff win.

Webmaster’s note: The Abington Heights vs Chester PIAA Round 2 playoff game will be audio broadcast LIVE right here on Delcohoops.com! 

(click on this link for the full story)