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By Jack McCaffery

If it was District 1 championship night, and if it was Chester High on the basketball court, and if it was nearing spring, and if Hershey loomed in the distance, Keith Taylor would have known what to expect.

There would have been the mob of fans, many draped in orange. There would have been the Chester cheerleaders, legendary for their precision and style, bringing the crowd to a roar. There would have been bright lights at a college arena, maybe Temple, maybe Villanova. The Palestra, even.

There would have been a scene.

“Celebrities,” Taylor, the Chester coach, was saying Tuesday night. “College coaches. Professional players. They would have been there, all of them, to watch a big school basketball game. The Big Stage. The atmosphere. It would have been awesome.”

There was only some of that at 9th and Barclay Tuesday, as the Clippers rolled West Chester Rustin, 62-46 for the district’s Class 5A boys basketball championship. The coronavirus still a shadowing concern, the crowd was limited to a couple of hundred, all on the same side of the Fred Pickett Jr. Gymnasium, their voices coming through loud and clear despite covered mouths. Yet for all those legendary district championship nights in the past, 36 in all dating to 1943 according to legendary Clippers historian Dave Burman, there was something uniquely challenging about No. 37.

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By Neil Geoghegan

Believe it or not, Tuesday evening was a sort of homecoming for Griffin Barrouk.

And just when it looked like the West Chester Rustin star and Hofstra commit was poised for a glorious return to the city of Chester, things went horribly wrong.

When his Rustin squad travelled to meet traditional power Chester in the District 1 Class 5A title game, it wasn’t the first time Barrouk had squared off against this city’s best basketball players. In fact, the 6-foot-5 senior shooting guard has been coming to Chester since he was a pre-teen, testing his skills against the best competition he could find.

The biggest outing of Barrouk’s high school career, however, was also his last. Late in the first quarter, with Rustin trailing by a bucket, he fell to the ground awkwardly while battling against the Clippers’ Isaiah Freeman for a loose ball. It was obvious immediately that this was an injury he was not going to shake off.

“We don’t know the extent of the injury but it didn’t look good,” said Rustin Athletic Director Devon Landgraff.

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By Terry Toohey

Once Lower Merion opened up a five-point lead in the third quarter Tuesday night, Garnet Valley coach Mike Brown knew what was coming.

With no shot clock in Pennsylvania high school basketball, Brown knew the Aces would turn to their four-corners offense to try to chew up the clock in much the same way a football team does with its running game.

“We had the same idea,” Brown said. “If we could have gotten a lead mid-to-late first quarter, we would have gone more four corners. Both teams are hard to guard on a spread-out floor and they’re very good at it. They’ve been playing that offense for as long as I’ve been at Garnet Valley. You don’t want to get behind because they play it well and they make foul shots. And at the end, who are you going to foul? They all make their foul shots so they’re a tough team to get behind.”

Lower Merion used its four-corners offense to stretch its lead to 10 points after three quarters and pull away for a 56-41 victory over the Jaguars in the semifinal round of the District 1 Class 6A playoffs.

The ninth-seeded Aces’ reward is a home game in the district final. They will host No. 14 Abington Friday night. The Ghosts knocked off seventh-seeded C.B. West in double overtime, 56-54.

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By Terry Toohey

From the start, Springfield was locked in defensively in its District 1 Class 5A semifinal showdown with Upper Moreland Saturday.

That’s nothing new. As head coach Ky McNichol said after Wednesday’s quarterfinal victory over Mount St. Joseph’s, defense is the Cougars’ “MO, our bread-andbutter.” That reliance was on full display from the getgo in a 51-24 triumph over the Bears.

The top-seeded Cougars forced six turnovers on Upper Moreland’s first eight possessions. Springfield only capitalized on one of the early miscues, but that would soon change. The Cougars had seven points off turnovers by the end of the quarter and would go on to score 25 points off 21 Upper Moreland giveaways to set up a championship showdown next Wednesday with second- seeded Harriton, a 46-43 winner over No. 3 Rustin in overtime.

It was the sixth time this season Springfield held an opponent under 30 points. The Cougars (19-0) allow just 32.5 points per outing.

“We know that if we cause turnovers on defense the offense is going to come with it so we really focus on defense,” said senior guard Mikayla Cox, who scored six points. “The offense is going to be there if we play good defense.”

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By Owen McCue

Carl Schaller and his Garnet Valley teammates were sick of early postseason exits.

Whether in the Central League playoffs or the District 1 tournament, a quick boot had become routine for the Jaguars.

Schaller helped lead Garnet Valley to two wins in the Central League playoffs earlier this season to earn the school’s first league title since 1998 and erased memories of last year’s upset district loss to Downingtown East with a win over 20th-seeded Upper Dublin in their opener.

On Friday night, the No. 4 Jags continued on their path of redemption, storming past No. 5 Perkiomen Valley, 63-38, to advance to the District 1 Class 6A semifinal for the first time since winning the district’s Class 2A crown in 1997. Garnet Valley will face a familiar foe in the district semis after No. 9 Lower Merion defeated top-seeded Cheltenham, 59-50.

“The first three years I’ve been here, we’ve had some pretty bad losses where we should have won in the playoffs,” Schaller said. “Going into senior year it was important to win the Central League, finally get through the semifinals. To be at this point, it’s just a huge step from last year. I’m just proud of the team.”

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By Bob Grotz

When all was said and done, it was impossible to believe the Chester High Clippers trailed three times in their runaway 73-40 District 1 Class 5A semifinal victory over Phoenixville Friday.

At the end of the day, the Clippers (11-1) had a lot of energy left while their opponent had to be wondering how you can play so hard and fall behind by such an astronomical number.

The full court press had a lot to do with that, and few teams in the history of Pennsylvania High School basketball do it like the Clippers, who tow a seven-game win streak into the District 1 title game against West Chester Rustin, which rolled to a 68-57 success over Unionville in the other semifinal.

“The beginning of the game, we wanted to recognize who the shooters were,” Clippers coach Keith Taylor said. “That (Mike Memmo) was killing us. He hit some big-time shots. Pulling up for three-pointers on the fast break, that’s tough to defend. And they played hard the whole game. Whether they were up or down, they just played hard.

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By Kev Hunter

Cheltenham got to within two points of Lower Merion with about two minutes to play Friday night, but the Aces were clutch from the foul line and tough defensively, holding on to defeat the Panthers 59-50 in the quarterfinal round of the District 1-6A Playoffs.

The win sends ninth-seeded Lower Merion to Tuesday’s semifinals, at No. 4 Garnet Valley, a 63-38 winner over No. 5 Perkiomen Valley.

One team advances to states out of District 1-6A.

Top-seeded Cheltenham finished a fine season at 14-2.

“I’m really proud of this team,” Panthers coach Patrick Fleury said. “We had a lead early but just have to learn that in the playoffs, every possession matters. Overall, this will be a good experience for the guys moving forward.”

The Panthers blew out to a 19-10 advantage early on their home court, but Lower Merion chipped away by halftime, cutting the deficit to 30-26, and then stormed ahead for good in the third.

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By Terry Toohey

Anabel Kreydt wasn’t sure where she was supposed to be when teammate Rachel Conran stepped to the free throw line with 4.2 seconds left and Springfield clinging to a precarious one-point lead Wednesday night.

Should she set up for a possible rebound in the event of a miss or go back on defense and help prevent Mount St. Joseph’s from getting a potential game-winning shot off before the buzzer?

“Usually, when there’s that much time left, they tell me to get back,”Kreydt said.

Kreydt, a sophomore, didn’t want to leave anything to chance. So she asked head coach Ky McNichol for some guidance, just to be sure. McNichol told Kreydt to set up for a possible rebound.

The decision to keep Kreydt in for a rebound turned out to be a wise move. Conran missed the free throw but Kreydt tipped the ball enough that when MSJ’s Kiersten Pumilia tracked it down and tried to make a play, she stepped on the sideline to give the ball back to the top-seeded Cougars with just 1.4 showing on the clock.

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By Kev Hunter

Bliss Brenner’s free throws fell through clean, the Upper Dublin defense stood firm one more time, and the Cardinals extracted a 23-18 victory out of an evening that was not their best.

“It was a rough game,” said Upper Dublin’s Amy Ngo, who scored timely baskets and contributed to the defense. “We had to stay calm and composed.

“We’re trying to put this game behind us – we missed a lot of easy shots. I think in the beginning of the game, we were excited and nervous because we hadn’t played in a week. We won, and that’s really important.”

The fourth-seeded Cardinals (19-3) advance to the quarterfinals on Saturday, and a home game against either Downingtown East or West Chester Rustin.

No. 13 Haverford finished a fine season at 7-3.

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