Author: delcohoops

Make it 15 straight wins for Chester boys basketball.

The Clippers tallied 60 points in the first half on the way to a 97-51 demolition of Academy Park Thursday.

The Clippers (16-1, 6-0 Del Val) led by 41 points at the break. Calvin Williams had 31 points in the first half and added 12 rebounds. Daron Harris scored 10 points, and Dante Atkinson added nine points. Chester had 11 players score, and 10 scored at least five points each.

Anthony Blue led Academy Park with 15 points.

In the Central League:

Radnor 43, Penncrest 30 >> Kessy Cox and Elijah Sellers scored 13 points each as the Raptors overturned a four-point halftime deficit and avenged a loss to start the league slate.

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By Joseph Santoliquito

They were a team full of stars a year ago that grinded. This year, the Radnor Raptors are a team full of grinders that grind. There is nothing flashy about them. There is no one dominant player that is athletically superior.

They are a dribbling, defending, floor-diving, sum-is-better-than-the-parts team.

Radnor boys basketball, which entered Thursday night’s Central League play the No. 3 team in PIAA District 1 Class 5A play, avenged an earlier-season loss to pesky, disciplined Penncrest 43-30 behind the team-high 13 points each from Kessy Cox and Elijah Sellers.

The Raptors (12-3, 8-4) still carry that mantle of the defending District 1 Class 5A champions. They have carried the weight of that well, as emphasized by the word on the back of the warm-up shooting shirts: “Proof.”

New coach Tim Smallwood has not thrown a lot at this group. He has kept simple mantra: “Compete.”

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Natalie Wright and the Haverford girls basketball team handed Conestoga its first loss of the season Thursday night.

Wright, a junior forward, scored a team-high 14 points in the Fords’ dominating, 38-27 win.

Haverford, which led from the opening tip, avenged a December defeat to Conestoga. The teams are tied for first place in the Central League.

Rian Dotsey finished with nine points for the Fords (14-3). Ryann Jennings had 10 points for the Pioneers (17-1).

Garnet Valley 49, Ridley 24 >> Haylie Adamski accumulated 18 points, eight rebounds, two assists and two steals for the Jaguars, who are one game behind Haverford and Conestoga for the top spot. Kylie Mulholland piled up 15 points, four assists and three steals.

Savanah Saunders (five points, three steals) was excellent on defense for the Jaguars. Kailyn Bell scored a team-high nine points for the Green Raiders.

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By Owen McCue

Natalie and Ashley Wright are pretty sure most opponents think they’re sisters when they go through their scout team.

Their teammates thought they might be related at one point too, believing the two Haverford girls basketball forwards were cousins when Natalie arrived at the high school a year after Ashley.

Natalie, a 5-10 junior, and Ashley, a 5-11 senior, are both similar in height and wear similar blonde ponytails that even get themselves confused at times.

“When we’re watching film we look at our heads, and I’m like wait I thought that was me?,” Natalie said.

Haverford’s Wrights aren’t sisters — though they did become good friends while swinging for the varsity team two years ago. And they do bring a similar energy and intensity as they showed in Thursday’s night’s 38-27 win over Conestoga.

They were two of the tone setters in a rugged Central League battle that ended the Pioneers’ perfect season and continued to propel a Fords team with sky high ambitions once again.

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By Matthew DeGeorge

Episcopal Academy’s plan Wednesday afternoon was clear from the start.

Haverford School would likely come out in a 3-2 zone defense to try to take away EA’s outside shooters. The Churchmen would have to counter by moving the ball quickly, hitting the extra man and knocking down any opportunities that opened.

When a 10-point first-half edge vanished into a tie game at the break, the answer was to double down on what had worked so well early. EA’s 8-0 run to start the second half created separation on the way to a 60-49 Inter-Ac victory. It was the same recipe that had led to a 14-4 start to the game.

“At halftime, it was all, ‘we need to do what we were doing in the first quarter,’” wing Timmy Dennis said. “We got off to a hot start. … We just needed to keep pushing. At halftime, we were talking about getting it to the middle.”

What worked for EA early was still effective late. The Churchmen got six quality looks from 3-point range on their first six possessions of the game. It yielded 14 points, with four makes and one in which Kevin McCarthy was fouled and hit two at the line.

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By Josh Verlin

When Anthony Lilly was still just a middle schooler, his parents had an idea of how his eventual high school career would go. Anthony had already made it clear he would be following his older brother Paul to Father Judge, basketball the tall youngster’s sport of choice. 

“They kept saying to me, my senior year, I think you guys will make it to the Palestra,” Lilly recalled.

At the time, that seemed a little optimistic: Judge wasn’t exactly a basketball powerhouse in a league full of them, hadn’t been to the Catholic League semifinals — hosted at the Palestra, the venerable gym on Penn’s campus that’s become the mecca of Philly high school basketball — since the 1998-99 season. 

As it turns out, Kathy and Paul Lilly might have been onto something.

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Ja’Mya Muhammad scored 22 points and grabbed 12 rebounds as Chester moved to 5-0 in the Del Val League with a 61-45 win over Penn Wood late Tuesday.

Imani Dorsey added 17 points, eight rebounds and 10 steals. Shyne hall scored 14 points for the Chippers (8-7).

Kailyn Freeman led Penn Wood with 14 points. Elisia Lawrence scored six points and secured 11 rebounds.

Boys Basketball

Dave Bertoline made the game-winning layup as time expired to lift Marple Newtown over Conestoga, 45-43, in Central League action Tuesday.

PJ Esposito scored 15 points. Ryan Keating added 13 points and 10 rebounds for the Tigers.

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By Matt Smith

When Debbie Black returned to her hometown in Bucks County, coaching high school basketball was the last thing on her mind. But then she heard from a friend that Marple Newtown had an open spot on the bench. Shortly thereafter, then-head coach Ryan Wolski asked if she would be interested in an assistant’s position.

“And I said, ‘Sure, but here’s my deal: I have never coached high school,’” Black said after Monday’s game against Lower Moreland.

Oh, that wasn’t a dealbreaker.

Black, who starred at Archbishop Wood and Saint Joseph’s, was a 15-year pro in various leagues including the WNBA until retirement in 2005. She was named the WNBA Defensive Player of the Year at 35 years old. Years later, she became head coach at Eastern Illinois from 2013-17 and spent time on staffs at Vanderbilt, Ohio State and Chattanooga.

Black became the head coach at Marple after Wolski stepped down. She has enjoyed opportunity to develop players at this level.

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By Matthew DeGeorge

As the shots continued not to fall and the deficit on the scoreboard persisted Tuesday night, Hamza Clay and his Chichester basketball teammates dug into their bag of solutions.

Problem-solving on the fly has become a thing for the Eagles, after losing the vast majority of production from last year’s states-qualifying squad. Through 16 games, they’ve handled the challenges at a .500 level.

But trailing at halftime to Interboro, whom Chichester had only beaten by two points in the first matchup, probably wasn’t envisioned among those challenges. Though when confronted with it on home court, Clay and company found a solution.

Chi turned up its defense to force 12 of the Bucs’ 30 turnovers in the third quarter, and Clay led a dogged rebounding and defensive effort in finally overcoming the greatly improved Bucs, 74-60.

The final score line will flatter the Eagles (9-8, 3-2 Del Val). This was a one-point game through three quarters, until the Eagles’ shooting awakened to go 12-for-18 from the field in the fourth, including makes on seven of the first nine attempts.

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By Josh Verlin

Echoes of last season still resonate in the gym at Radnor High School. 

The 2023 graduating class lifted the Raptors to new heights — a Central League title, District 1 5A championship and state quarterfinals appearance the culmination of a couple years of hardwood dominance. But with Jackson Hicke, Charlie Thornton, Danny Rosenblum and Cooper Mueller off to their respective schools last fall and a new coach taking over in Tim Smallwood, outside expectations dropped significantly for a program that wasn’t traditionally a hoops powerhouse.

Instead, the Radnor boys are back — and, while maybe not better than ever, still pretty darn good. They were impressive in a dismantling of a quality West Chester East side on Monday night, getting contributions from up and down the roster in a 60-35 win.

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