Delcohoops.com

By Matt Smith

Joanie Quinn sat on the bench with a blank stare and pondered how Cardinal O’Hara managed to find itself without a point after one quarter of play Thursday night.

Moments earlier, Archbishop Carroll’s Brooke Wilson made five free throws at the end of the period. She was fouled in the act of shooting, prompting a fierce rebuttal from O’Hara coach Chrissie Doogan. The officials didn’t appreciate her tone, so Doogan was whistled for a technical foul. That would explain Wilson’s five freebies to give Carroll a 15-point cushion.

Two days after the Lions were held to one point in the fourth quarter at Archbishop Wood, the O’Hara offense couldn’t escape the doldrums.

“In my head I was thinking, ‘I know we are better than this,’” said Quinn, the Lions’ fantastic junior point guard. “We are not losing this game and we’ve got to go show it.”

(click on this link for the full story)

The offense was flowing for Academy Park and Chester Thursday night. When all was said and done, Alaysia Kinlaw had a career-high 27 points and Academy Park had a 74-61 Del Val League win. Emani Banks posted a double-double for the Knights with 20 points. 13 rebounds and four blocks. Semaji Young scored 16 points and was the primary playmaker with eight assists. Kinlaw added seven rebounds. Imani Dorsey led Chester with 26 points, including three 3-pointers. Shyne Hall poured in 22 points for the Clippers, and Jamya Muhammad added eight.

Also in the Del Val League:

Penn Wood 66. Interboro 33 » Xenia Gillis posted a double-double of 19 points and 14 rebounds as the Patriots doubled up the Bucs at home. Ani Roscoe led all scorers with 20 points. Erin Boyer led the Bucks with eight points and Alaina D’Angelo added seven.

(click on this link for more game stories and scores)

Make it 18 straight wins for the Radnor boys basketball team. The Raptors Thursday night were led by Jackson Hicke’s 27 points and eight rebounds, in a 62-33 win over Springfield. The Cougars were within eight points at half, but a 26-5 margin in the third quarter by the Raptors (18-0,12-0 Central) blew the game wide open. Charlie Thornton tallied nine points, and Danny Rosenblum added seven points and four assists for Radnor.

Also in the Central League:

Garnet Valley 65, Conestoga 47 » Quinn O’Hara hit four 3-pointers in the second half on the way to 17 points for the Jaguars, leading them to the win. Jake Sniras added 17 points, and Max Koehler had eight, including a 4-for-4 performance from the line in the fourth quarter to steer the Jags (13-5, 8-4) to victory.

(click on this link for more game stories and scores)

By Matthew DeGeorge

Tommy Wright didn’t know for sure where he’d fit in when the Haverford basketball season began. Graduations from last year’s states team left niches open, and Wright was ready to step into whichever the team needed.

In the process, Wright has advanced a trait that is as strong with the Fords’ program as any in the area: The ability to rotate players up into bigger roles year after year.

Wright is averaging 8.0 points per game. Last year, as an off-ball player who got most of his offense as a spot-up shooter or on the offensive glass, he averaged 6.0 ppg.

The Fords had to replace two of their leading scorers from last year, Nick Colucci and JR Newman. So Wright and Brian Wiener, who went from 6.4 ppg to 12.1 this season, have cycled up to bigger roles.

“Once you figure it out and we start getting better and better chemistry, it all starts clicking,” Wright said.

(click on this link for more game stories)

By Josh Verlin

Amyr Walker doesn’t take many shots, not that he needs to.

The fifth option in the West Catholic offense, Walker has to share the ball with a couple Division I commits and two other scholarship-level talents, so even in the Burrs’ uptempo system, that doesn’t mean more than a few looks every game. But that’s no problem for the 6-foot-2, 200-pound senior wing guard, who’s just thrilled to be starting for the varsity squad after three years playing JV.

“My role’s [to] play hard,” Walker said. “I’m all about winning, everything is about winning. I’ll play any role they put me out there for, I just want to win.”

(click on this link for the full story)

By Josh Verlin

It was at halftime, Charlie Thornton said, that Radnor had a decision to make. The Raptors were locked in a battle, holding a one-point lead on the road at archrival Lower Merion, in the only regular-season meeting between the two Central League favorites, and according to Thornton, it came down to a choice.

“Are we going to bend and break,” the Radnor senior recalled them saying, “or are we going to stay together and try to really win the game?”

It was an obvious answer, of course, though easier said than done — at least, so you’d think. The way Radnor played the final 16 minutes against the program used to being the class of the league, it looked like it was no more difficult than the simple flipping of a switch.

With everybody in the Radnor top seven contributing almost equally, the Raptors put their foot down on the road, a decisive third quarter leading to a runaway 64-41 win on Tuesday night in Kobe Bryant Gymnasium.

(click on this link for the full story)