Anthony Lilly (above) and Judge are 6-1 in the Catholic League after Wednesday’s win. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)
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.