Author: delcohoops

 

By Matt Smith

Here are the four PIAA District 1 playoff brackets that we will be following:

6A

5A

4A

1A

For the other brackets go to PIAA District 1.

 

By Bob Grotz

It was going to take a lot more than a bloody nose to keep John Seidman from getting to the basket and the free throw line Saturday in Haverford’s 39-35 Central League quarterfinal win over Radnor.

Seidman kept plugging away with a wad of tissue jammed in his nose courtesy of a bump while he was putting the finishing touches on an 18-point effort at Garnet Valley High.

“I honestly don’t know how it happened,” Seidman said of his gusher. “It was one of those things where I just noticed it was bleeding. My shot wasn’t falling so I kept going to the basket. That’s how I had to score.”

On a day when Seidman couldn’t get any outside shots to fall, he drove into the lane to make several spinning layups. When he didn’t get them to fall it was frequently because he was bumped. Seidman made eight of 11 free throws. He drew roughly 15 fouls on the Raiders, fouling out one of his defenders in Colin Lane and saddling Josh Savadove with four fouls.

“I think he played an excellent game,” Chadwin said of Seidman. “He’s very tough. He uses his body really well and he’s a good passer. Give credit to them. They did a fantastic job of not letting us really get going offensively. And we didn’t really help ourselves by going 10-for-18 at the free throw line.”

Webmaster’s note: The Central League Boy’s and Girl’s Basketball Championships on February 11th will be audio broadcast LIVE right here on Delcohoops.com!

(click on this link for the full story)

 

By Matt Smith

Harriton High was missing its head coach for Saturday’s Central League girls playoff quarterfinal with reigning champion Garnet Valley.

Second-year Rams coach Chris Wielgus was being honored at Dartmouth College, where she coached for 28 years and won 12 Ivy league championships before taking over the Harriton program in 2018. Forty years of Dartmouth women’s basketball was celebrated at halftime of Big Green’s contest with Yale, and Wielgus was a big reason for the program’s success over the last four decades.

Back at Harriton, Wielgus’s absence left sensational sophomore guard Annie Aspesi and Co. to win one for the Gipper. With interim coach Chris Gari, the eighth-grade coach at Welsh Valley Middle School, calling the shots, the Rams pulled off an absolute shocker. Aspesi generated 31 points, three steals and two assists to propel Harriton to a 43-39 victory at Kobe Bryant Gymnasium.

“It was awesome to win this for her,” Aspesi said. “She told us before that she didn’t have to go and leave us. She is back at Dartmouth where she is being honored and she said she doesn’t want to have to choose them over us. But we all told her to go and we told her that she has done enough for us and that we can handle it and work hard.”

Oh, the Rams absolutely deserved this win. With strong, on-the-ball defense and savvy decision making on the offensive end, the Rams (12-11) gave the Jags (18-5) all they could handle Saturday.

Webmaster’s note: The Central League Boy’s and Girl’s Basketball Championships on February 11th will be audio broadcast LIVE right here on Delcohoops.com!

(click on this link for the full story)

 

By Matt Smith

Ben Stanton knew he had to seize the moment and be the hero.

Midway through the fourth quarter, Penncrest was beginning to wonder if it had enough left in the tank to beat crosstown rival Strath Haven. Somebody on the Lions needed to make a play when a once cozy, double-digit lead nearly evaporated.

The malaise began to set in during the middle quarters. Although the Lions were ahead comfortably on the scoreboard, there was a sense in the building that Haven was bound to go on a run.

The Panthers made things interesting and Penncrest almost unraveled. Even respected veteran head coach Mike Doyle, as cool as they come, briefly lost his composure when he received an unwarranted technical foul after one official failed to acknowledge his obvious call for a timeout.

It was the first time Doyle had been teed up in 11 years. The technical occurred immediately after Haven’s Luke Edwards stole an in-bounds pass and scored a layup to trim the Lions’ advantage to four points with 24 seconds to go.

“We needed a timeout there and I thought that was a really good call by our coaches,” said forward Justin Potts, who came up with a key defensive rebound in the final minute. “We just needed to relax.”

Webmaster’s note: The Central League Boy’s and Girl’s Basketball Championships on February 11th will be audio broadcast LIVE right here on Delcohoops.com!

(click on this link for the full story)

By Bob Grotz

For much of Saturday afternoon it was one of those games where points were scarce and only the clock moved.

When the math was complete the Haverford girls exited with a 38-23 victory over Radnor in the Central League basketball quarterfinals at Garnet Valley High. It was as dominating a defensive performance as you could hope for in a playoff setting.

“We’re used to that pace because we know we play mostly a defensive game,” said Fords junior Chiara MacGillivray, who scored 10 points. “Our strength is on defense. If we’re going to create on offense, it’s going to start at the defensive end. That’s really where we get all our energy. We were able to work as a team to get stops.”

The Fords (15-9) take on top-seeded Springfield in the semis Monday.

The way the Fords played in-your-face defense Saturday, it’s hard to believe the Cougars got enough of a look to beat them via a buzzer-beating three-pointer in the regular season.

Ellie Mueller, the 1,000-point scorer, scored 10 points for the Raiders. Teammate Brienne Williams was limited to six points.

Webmaster’s note: The Central League Boy’s and Girl’s Basketball Championships on February 11th will be audio broadcast LIVE right here on Delcohoops.com!

(click on this link for the full story)

By Matthew DeGeorge

The Central League’s unbalanced schedule has long been an impediment to crowning a true champion. It’s a delicate balance with 12 teams in the league. Playing each opponent twice in a true home-and-home is impossible under the PIAA’s 22-game limit. Playing each team once doesn’t solve the home-court imbalance, and leaving 11 nonleague games is too burdensome of a schedule.

So the Goldilocks solution being tried this year is an expanded league playoff system that admits six teams into a knockout tournament.

The Central League used to qualify only the top four teams in the regular-season standings, or the top three if one team finished unbeaten, which is fairly commonplace and could happen again this year with Springfield’s girls at 15-0 entering the last day of league play Thursday.

The new playoffs take place over three days at neutral sites. The third seed plays the sixth, and four will play five Saturday, with the re-seeded winners taking on the top two seeds Monday night. The winners advance to Tuesday’s final.

(click on this link for the full story)

By Ari Glazier

Coaches who utilize a fast-paced offense are faced with a tricky balancing act. When you take a big lead, at what point, if at all, do you move away from your initial tactics and slow the game down? 

That question was paramount in Cardinal O’Hara’s 61-54 upset road victory over Neumann-Goretti on Friday night.

After jumping out to an 16-point lead over NG in the first half, largely thanks to his team’s high-velocity offense, Lions coach Ryan Nemetz directed his team to start draining the clock. This led to neither team scoring a point from midway through the third quarter to the last seconds of the period.

Neumang guard Hysier Miller hit a floater to at the buzzer to end the scoring drought and cut O’Hara’s lead to 48-32. This seemed to kickstart Neumann-Goretti, who went on a 10-0 run to start the final quarter, dragging the crowd from being a nonfactor to uproariously willing their team to a comeback victory.

(click on this link for the full story)

By Josh Verlin

Conference tournament season is here! The Philadelphia Public League tournament is already underway, and the Pioneer Athletic Conference held its opening round on Wednesday night.

With a few other leagues having their semifinals this weekend and championships early next week (and a few hours off this afternoon), I figured this would be a good time for a quick preview of a few different tournaments. We’ll do a Catholic League preview on its own after that field is finalized on Sunday, as well as district tournament previews next week:

~~~

Central League
1st Round –– Both Games Sat., Feb. 8 @ 3:30 PM
3) Penncrest vs. 6) Strath Haven (@ Lower Merion)
4) Haverford vs. 5) Radnor (@ Garnet Valley)

The boys’ first-round games in the first year of the Central League’s expanded six-team playoffs are both part of boy/girl doubleheaders, hence the somewhat-strange locations, as Haverford (13-9, 9-7) and Radnor (14-8, 9-7) both travel much further than they would have if they were playing at Lower Merion. Regardless, expect a couple of low-scoring, defensive battles, though it’s not as if there aren’t talented players on all four squads. Haverford/Radnor presents a battle of two of the best in the Central League in Fords’ do-it-all junior wing John Seidman and Radnor’s 6-6 forward Jack D’Entremont; though the two won’t likely be matched up much on one another, they have a similar ability to impact the game. 

(click on this link for more all of the article)

By Matthew DeGeorge

Based on games reported to the Daily Times through Wednesday, Feb. 5; games missing key at bottom.

Scoring Average
(Minimum half of team games played)

Grant Sareyka, Christian Academy 20.8
Karell Watkins, Chester 19.6
Carl Schaller, Garnet Valley 19.4
Tahriq Marrero, Academy Park 19.3
Alex Capitano, Episcopal Academy 18.5
Shamir Baynes, Penn Wood 18.2
Derrick Northern, Academy Park 17.8
Josh Hankins, Chichester 17.7
John Seidman, Haverford 17.6
Tyreese Watson, Bonner & Prendergast 17.5
Tre Dinkins, Cardinal O’Hara 17.4
Jack D’Entremont, Radnor 17.3
John Camden, Archbishop Carroll 16.7
Christian Clover, Haverford School 16.6

(click on this link for the full scoring stats)