Category: Latest News

By Jason Guarente

When they were opponents many years ago, occasionally clashing at a CYO game, a mutual respect developed between Maggie Doogan and Annie Welde. 

Once they were united as teammates at Cardinal O’Hara, their talents grew into something more. They became a force. Two unselfish 6-footers who always seemed to know where the other was going.

Doogan and Welde have a connection that has been building since they first put on the same uniform.

“It was amazing,” Doogan said. “We were still growing into our bodies a little bit as freshmen. As we got older, we kept pushing each other at practice. That chemistry bonded once we got on the court.”

As they inch toward the end of their high school careers, they have a final mission. They want to capture another PIAA championship. O’Hara took the next step by defeating Greencastle-Antrim 57-29 in the Class 5A second round at West York Sunday.

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By Matt Smith

After Haley Levy underwent back surgery a year ago, her basketball coach was one of the first people she saw when she returned home.

Ryan Wolski was ready to help with anything the Marple Newtown senior needed. It was remembering Wolski’s show of kindness that had Levy in tears after the Tigers lost to Springfield, 45-42, in the second round of the PIAA Class 5A tournament Sunday at Cardinal O’Hara.

“He’s been with us seniors for all four years and he’s always been there for me,” Levy said through a wave of tears. “The day I got home from my surgery, he was there. And he’s always … just a text away, always there within five seconds if we need anything.

“He’s an amazing person.”

To Levy, Wolski is a coach, but is also like a big brother.  After her procedure, Levy was uncertain whether she would be able to return to form on the basketball court. She had a long and arduous rehabilitation process before she could step back on the floor.

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By Bruce Adams

Penn Wood gave an imposing Cheltenham team a battle for three quarters Sunday before the talented and deep Panthers pulled away for a 66-50 win in the second round of the PIAA Class 6A tournament at Bensalem.

The Patriots, the 10th seed out of District 1, found themselves tied with the Panthers at halftime, thanks in part to senior forward Evan Borward, who worked his way underneath the basket for eight first-half points.

Penn Wood led 40-39 with 16.8 seconds to go in the third after Sahmir Massenburg hit both ends of a one-and-one. But that preceded a 20-1 run by Cheltenham that ended all doubt as to the outcome.

“We expected to be there with Cheltenham. We’re a little upset with how we started the fourth quarter,” Penn Wood coach Matt Lindeman said. “Cheltenham is really good, but we’re proud of how our guys fought and competed.”

Cheltenham forward Justin Savage worked his way underneath for a basket in the closing seconds of the third to give the Panthers a slim 41-40 lead.

Borward led Penn Wood (16-9) with 12 points, followed by Massenburg (10), Murray (9) and Mekhi Shillingford (7).

Mother Nature wreaked havoc with the second day of the second round of the PIAA boys and girls basketball tournaments.

The snowstorm that blew through the eastern part of the state Saturday forced the postponement of 28 of the 48 games on the schedule including all four games involving Delaware County teams. Those games have been rescheduled for Sunday.

In boys Class 6A, Garnet Valley will take on Scranton Sunday at Freedom High School in Bethlehem (4 p.m.), while Penn Wood faces Cheltenham at Bensalem High (1 p.m.). In girls 5A, Springfield and Marple Newtown will square off at Cardinal O’Hara at 3 p.m. while O’Hara plays Greencastle-Antrim at West York High School at 6 p.m.

By Matthew DeGeorge

The past hung heavy at Cardinal O’Hara High School Friday night.

For Chester, it was the memory of a dramatic win, a run that wasn’t, of a fallen brother memorialized on the basketball court. For Archbishop Ryan, there was the weight of a demolition of Chester in the state semifinals last year and the hunger that would undoubtedly spark on the opposite bench.

Then there was the future, which for the hundreds of boisterous fans in attendance wearing Chester orange-and-black, came wrapped in the 5-10 package that is Kyree Womack.

Womack played the hero again, with 11 fourth-quarter points to cash in the suffocating vise grip of Chester’s full-court press that finally squeezed out Archbishop Ryan in a 53-48 thriller in the PIAA Class 6A Round of 16.

“Big-time players make big-time shots,” Womack, a developing authority on the subject, said. “The ball was supposed to be in my hands (in the) fourth quarter. … I just thank my team for playing good defense and keeping the pressure on them. Game of runs, we didn’t break down.”

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By Matthew DeGeorge

Marple Newtown can tell the tale of the third states win in program history in three 3s.

There was the triple from PJ Esposito, the sophomore wing, in the second quarter to get Marple’s offense untracked against a stingy Mastery Charter North Friday night. There was the one that Justin DiBona nailed late in the third quarter to give the Tigers their first lead since the first quarter, a four-point play falling into the Marple bench.

And then there was Matt Gardler, whose first high school game at the familiar family haunt of Cardinal O’Hara was one to remember.

Gardler beat the third-quarter buzzer with a desperation 32-footer, one of four 3-pointers he canned in the second half as Marple’s run in the PIAA Class 5A tournament soldiers on, with a 56-48 win over Mastery Charter North.

The Tigers (18-10) will take on Imhotep Charter, which defeated Radnor in a late game Friday, in a PIAA quarterfinal match Tuesday.

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By Sean McBryan

Archbishop Carroll and its dynamic senior duo of Drexel commit Grace O’Neill and Villanova commit Maggie Grant might’ve fallen short of their lofty season goals of PCL and state titles; they didn’t go down easily.

If you just focused on the final score, a 47-44 victory for Cedar Cliff, you might think it was a back-and-forth slugfest with multiple lead changes.

It was really a tale of two halves in the PIAA Class 6A second-round tilt between the District 12 champion Patriots (21-6) and District 3 third-place Colts (28-1) Friday night at Governor Mifflin Intermediate School in Shillington.

Cedar Cliff scored the first eight points of the game and jumped out to 13-point leads of 17-4 and 21-8. At halftime it was 26-16 and seemed like the Patriots’ successful season was going to come crashing to a halt.

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By Joseph Santoliquito

There was a business sense in their eyes during layup drills and pre-game warmups. That translated quickly to the court. Imhotep Charter star Justin Edwards scored his 21st point with 3:14 left in the first half Friday night against Radnor in the PIAA Class 5A second round state playoff game at Coatesville.

Radnor was still stuck on 16 at the time.

That pretty much said all you needed to know.

Imhotep Charter (25-4) hardly gave Radnor any room to breathe, stomping on the Raptors early towards a 62-39 playoff victory to advance to the quarterfinal round of the state playoffs against Marple Newtown, 56-48 winners over Mastery Charter North, on Tuesday at a site and time to be determined.

Radnor (22-4) saw a very successful season come to an end.

This is getting closer to what legendary Imhotep coach Andre Noble envisioned at the start of the season.

“We’re playing very well right now,” Noble said. “I thought that first half we were lights out shooting the ball, and with our ball movement. When we move and share the ball, we’re an elite team. We have guys who can go through and that goes to what we did in the first half.

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By Bryan Davis

It may have said the Cardinal O’Hara was the third-place team out of District 12, but everybody at Bishop Shanahan knew better and the Lions played like one of the top teams in state that they are.

Putting aside the controversy that engulfed them in the past week, O’Hara led from start to finish and pulled away in the third quarter en route to a 52-32 win over Bishop Shanahan in the first round of the PIAA 5A Tournament on Wednesday.

The Lions, whose official record according to the PIAA improved to 12-15, will face Greencastle Antrim of District 3 in the second round Saturday.

O’Hara had to forfeit a number of games after being ruled to have an in-elligible player as a result of a clerical error. They were originally the top seed, but were place third. That meant that although they had a home game, Shanahan had to face the defending state champions in the opening round.

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By Matthew DeGeorge

By the time the final horn sounded at West Philadelphia High Wednesday night, it felt as though more than one game had played out.

Based on the pace of play for large stretches, that was true to a certain degree. For much of the first and third quarters of the PIAA Class 6A boys basketball opener, the game was played on Garnet Valley’s terms. That changed in the second quarter when Lincoln, the District 12 champion, turned up its press. By a helter-skelter fourth, all bets were off.

When all the dizzying ebbs in play had settled, Garnet Valley found itself on the right side of a 65-56 win, the program’s first in a state tournament since 1997.

For the team that barely snuck into districts much less states, it was the perfect kind of victory to ensure midnight has not yet struck on their Cinderella run.

“The entire season has been, we started rocky, but we’ve just learned the entire season,” junior guard Max Koehler said. “It’s been a huge learning process, and look at us now.”

When next you look at Garnet Valley (18-10), it’ll be in the Round of 16 of the state tournament, the sixth seed from District 1 due to tangle Saturday with Scranton.  The District 2 champion eliminated West Chester East, 84-70.

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