It was a tough Saturday for Chester’s Breilynd White (1), Isaiah Freeman (5), Kyree Womack (22) and Kevin Rucker (11) amid a loss to Imhotep in a PIAA Class 5A semifinal game at Coatesville High. (Pete Bannan – MediaNews Group).
By Jack McCaffery
One by one, they left the locker room at Coatesville Area High School Saturday, some with heads down, some with reddened eyes, all in far less than celebratory spirit. The basketball season was over for the players on the ninth consecutive Chester team to not do what was expected if not demanded. As it had been since 2012, there would be no state championship.
“We came up short today,” said Durrell Moore, who had filled in for hospitalized head coach Keith Taylor. “We fought through a lot of adversity this year. I am proud of them. They played hard.”
That was the proper attitude for any coach at the high school level. Remember the good times and praise the effort, then collect the uniforms and the memories, hardly in that order.
The Clippers did what they could in a 66-41 loss to Imhotep in the PIAA Class 5A Final Four, and that should have been enough. Yet that’s not how it works at Chester, and Moore had to know that, too. There, no season is satisfactory unless it ends with a banner ceremony in the Fred Pickett Jr. Gym. Coaches have said that. Athletic directors have said that. Fans, assistant coaches and players have said that. It’s not imagined. It’s real, and for many years, it has had value.