Radnor’s Kessy Cox scored 13 points in a defensive battle with Penncrest Thursday night that end in a win. (Photo: Mark Jordan/CoBL)
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.”