Radnor’s Cooper Mueller dribbles in the third quarter of their District 1 Class 5A playoff game against Sun Valley Wednesday evening. (PETE BANNAN – DAILY TIMES)
By Matthew DeGeorge
The dunk was almost the least of it from Cooper Mueller, even before he took flight from the floor at Radnor High School Wednesday night.
Countless times this season, the junior guard has jumped a passing lane or picked a pocket, turning those loose balls into easy baskets. When he jarred the ball loose in the second quarter against Sun Valley, he was well on his way to another momentum-injecting passage of play, no matter how he elected to finish it at the other end.
The dunk, and the resultant surge of electricity through the Radnor bench, was just a bonus; an extra exclamation point. Mueller’s defense keyed an early rout by the Raptors, dashing past the No. 8 Vanguards, 53-28, to book a place in the District 1 Class 5A semifinals and a first states berth for Radnor since 2006.