Delcohoops.com

By Matt Smith

Springfield never forgot what it was like to lose to Mount St. Joseph in the District 1 Class 5A tournament.

Excuse the Cougars for holding a grudge.

“The last two years they bounced us out of the playoffs,” senior point guard Alyssa Long said. “It was nice to get them back.”

When Long and the other Springfield seniors were freshmen, they defeated Mount St. Joseph at Villanova University for the District 1 championship. It was the first district championship in Springfield girls basketball history.

But that was so long ago.

All that matters now is that the 2019-20 Cougars are about to play for another district championship. They will do so after conquering the Mount, 52-42, in the semifinals Tuesday night at Harriton.

“For the underclassmen, they have never beaten Mount, they have always been knocked out by them,” said Long, who produced nine points and five steals. “We really wanted to change that story and we didn’t want to get knocked out by them again. We came, we were ready to go in the locker room, and I think getting out to a quick start told us that we’re a new team this year … and it was going to be a different story.”

(click on this link for the full story)

John Camden, Anquan Hill and Amiri Stewart combined for 45 points to lead Archbishop Carroll to a 72-58 triumph over Bartram in the District 12 Class 4A third-place game Tuesday night.

Camden hit four 3-pointers to finish with a team-high 16 points. The 6-8 junior added 15 points and Stewart 14 for the Patriots (16-9). Dean Coleman-Newsome added 10 of his 13 in the first half.

Carroll takes on the second-place team from District 11 in the opening round of the PIAA tournament on Friday March 6 at a site and time to be determined.

By Bob Grotz

It only seemed like the Garnet Valley boys’ basketball team qualified for the state basketball tournament for the first time ever following its 68-53 triumph over Upper Darby in the Class 6A playbacks Tuesday night.

While the Jaguars reached the dance in 1997, 23 years is an eternity, especially contrasted with a girls’ program that has a state final and a District 1 title in its recent past.

The next step for the Jaguars (22-4), the second seed in District 1, is a state seeding game Friday against North Penn, the 24th seed. North Penn defeated Central Bucks East, 46-43. It was their third straight road victory in the playbacks.

But back to the Jaguars, who never trailed after Neel Beniwal buried the first of his four 3-pointers in the first minute.

Beniwal scored a game-high 21 points to take the scoring burden off star guard Carl Schaller, who fouled out despite taking more than he gave, the spark plug having to switch from No. 2 to 32 when his shooting wrist leaked blood in a contest with 37 fouls.

“We knew we had to win to get into states,” Beniwal said. “We all brought it today. We’ve been bringing the effort every game but we’ve been struggling to shoot. But today we were all making shots and we were all sharing the ball. It was fun.”

(click on this link for the full story)

By Mike Mayer, Web master

I don’t think there is any way I would have ever imagined back in 2013, when we decided to create and introduce Delcohoops.com, that we would be talking about 1,500,000 web page hits after only 7 seasons!  But that is exactly what has occurred as we come to the end of the 2019/20 high school basketball season. WOW!

As impressive are the numbers of games we have broadcast in the past 7 years (over 120).  We not only have a following in the Delaware County but in Pennsylvania as well.  Our broadcasts are also picked-up in 20 states and 10 foreign countries including France, Germany and Israel. That’s the beauty of the Internet.  If you’re connected you can get us anywhere in the world!

A special thank-you to our crew, Dave Burman, Pete Fulginiti and Andrew Kauffman who have made our Internet broadcasts a thing of beauty and excitement for the thousands that have listened live or on archive.  To Brian Carroll, our first play-by-play broadcaster, who was instrumental in getting our basketball broadcast started.  A special thank-you to Mark Jordan, Radnor’s girls basketball coach, who amid his own team’s run for district championships, has been a guest commentator during our playoff broadcast and has added so much information and insight for our listeners.

To all the Athletic Directors who, in spite of being responsible for dozens of teams and schedules, have always worked to make us comfortable and able to do our broadcasts in their facilities.

Last, but certainly not least, our sponsors who appear on the right of this page.  It costs over $3,000 a year to maintain these pages and broadcast capability.  Keystone Quality Transport stepped up in a big way this year to make sure we were able to broadcast every possible game during the regular season and hectic playoffs. The Delco Times whose articles fill these pages and who have also stepped up to promote our playoff broadcasts.  To all the other sponsors, their continued support, most of them since the inception, have made it possible to continue our efforts. Please patronize them whenever possible and tell them you appreciate their support of Delcohoops.com

We’re looking forward to hitting the 2 million mark!  

By Matthew DeGeorge

Since the calendar flipped to 2020, Chester has found itself on the wrong side of the ledger just one time. The Jan. 18 setback to Baltimore’s Polytechnic High School is the Clippers’ only loss in the last 18 outings.

And in last week’s win over Lower Merion, they got a boost with the return of Fareed Burton, who had missed the previous three games, including the first-round postseason win against Haverford. It’s a big boost to return a starting point guard for Tuesday’s date with top-seeded Methacton in the District 1 Class 6A semifinal game at Temple. Tipoff is at 7:30 p.m.

Burton was quiet against Lower Merion, going 0-for-5 from the field for just three points. But his energy on the defensive end helped repel the threat of Lower Merion’s Sam Brown. And for a team that only goes seven players deep when everyone’s healthy, every body off Keith Taylor’s bench counts.

“It’s a pleasure to have Fareed back,” junior forward Karell Watkins said after the game against the Aces. “We were missing him. We needed his energy. We needed his hustle. We just needed everything from him, and he gave it to us tonight.”

(click on this link for the full story)

Webmaster’s note: Both today’s D1 6A Chester vs Methacton and tomorrow’s D1 5A Penn Wood vs Penncrest semi-final playoff games will be broadcast LIVE  on our Game-of-the-Week broadcast. Today’s broadcast begins at 7:15 PM while tomorrow’s will begin at 5:45 PM.

By CoBL Staff

1) Methacton vs. 4) Chester (7:30 PM)
When it comes to district tournament experience, these two programs are just about polar opposites. For decades, Chester has been a regular presence this deep in districts, winning more than its fair share, even though the Clippers (21-3) haven’t done so since the 2014 AAAA district tournament, before the state went from four to six classifications. Methacton, meanwhile, has never been this deep in the district tournament, but that doesn’t mean this group of Warriors (24-2) are in over their heads. Just the opposite, in fact: after winning their third consecutive Pioneer Athletic Conference title, routinely beating their conference foes by 20-30 points or more, Methacton had no problems in its first two district games, beating No. 16 Council Rock South 66-41 and then No. 8 Pennridge 69-46. Chester didn’t have many problems in beating No. 13 Haverford 64-44 in its second-round game, but had to fight off No. 5 Lower Merion 54-46 in the quarterfinals.

(click on this link for the full preview)

Webmaster’s note: Both today’s D1 6A Chester vs Methacton and tomorrow’s D1 5A Penn Wood vs Penncrest semi-final playoff games will be broadcast LIVE  on our Game-of-the-Week broadcast. Today’s broadcast begins at 7:15 PM while tomorrow’s will begin at 5:45 PM.