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By Matt Smith

Academy of Notre Dame’s Riley Davis has the family pedigree and certainly the skillset to go a long way in the sport of basketball.

She’s an unassuming freshman enjoying the ride of being a first-year varsity starter. But there are expectations when you are the daughter of Ben Davis, the Aston native who went on to star in basketball and baseball at Malvern Prep before being selected as the No. 2 overall pick in the 1995 MLB Draft. Riley’s mom, Megan (nee McGonagle), was a tremendous athlete at Sun Valley who played soccer and lacrosse at Rutgers.

Riley is starting to blaze her trail on the hardwood. On Tuesday, the sweet-shooting combo guard led the Irish to a 41-22 victory over Inter-Ac League rival Episcopal Academy, scoring a game-high 17 points.

“It’s so much fun, I couldn’t ask for a better school. It was either here or a public school and I am 100% more happy that I came here,” she said. “I love it here. Everyone is so welcoming here and it is so much fun to play on such a good team with such good coaches.”

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Matt Gardler was a scoring machine in Marple Newtown’s 58-34 victory over Upper Darby Tuesday night.

Gardler banked seven 3-pointers on the way to a 30-point performance. He also grabbed 10 rebounds.

Ryan Keating ended with 10 points and Steve Tansey added five points and five assists for the Tigers.

Elsewhere in the Central League:

Radnor 55, Haverford 38 >> Elijah Seller scored 12 points and Michael Savadove chipped in with 11 points for the Raptors (9-2, 6-2), who led 24-13 at halftime and never looked back.

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Haverford’s Rian Dotsey scored a game-high 23 points during Tuesday’s 51-33 Central League win over Radnor.

Dotsey had nine points in the second quarter to help give the Fords a 26-11 lead at halftime. She also had 12 rebounds and four blocks. Aniya Eberhart amassed 11 points, five rebounds and five assists in the winning effort.

Ashley Wright netted 11 points.

Anna Reger led the Raptors with nine points.

Elsewhere in the Central League:

Ridley 46, Springfield 45 >> Kyla Carney’s 13-point effort fueled a balanced scoring attack by the Green Raiders. Taylor Marsich hit a trio of 3-pointers and finished with 11 points, while Kailyn Bell had nine and Jamie Wojechowski added eight.

By Justin Procope

Although it was the first meeting of the season between the two teams, the matchup against Archbishop Carroll felt strangely familiar to Saint Joseph’s Prep. In many ways, the Hawks saw themselves.

“That’s what we talked about in film all week, how we used to be them,” SJP senior guard Jalen Harper said. “Young, inexperienced, but we brought that experience today.”

That they did. 

A youthful Carroll squad was simply outgunned and outmatched as Prep rolled to a 84-63 home victory.

In past seasons, Prep was known as the up-and-coming squad armed with some of the best guards the city has to offer. Now juniors and seniors, the guard quartet of Harper, Jaron Mckie, Olin Chamberlain, and Jordan Ellerbee are no longer up and coming, they are here. 

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By Josh Verlin

Gregg Downer knows what life in the driver’s seat is like.

The Lower Merion coach has had more than his fair share of Central League championships, from Kobe Bryant’s senior season in 1996 through his most recent in 2022. His Aces went undefeated in the league in a handful of them, which for a good while was enough for an automatic berth in the Central League championship game.

Usually, those teams were expected, stocked with proven talent, like the 2012-13 group led by B.J. Johnson or the 2018-19 team led by Jack Forrest, Lower Merion the clear favorite to control the league of suburban public schools west and southwest of the city.

This year’s group is doing something different: surprising everybody.

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By Josh Verlin

The first week of 2024 was indeed an exciting one in the local landscape, with some movers and shakers starting to move and shake in the first high school conference races, while the college conference slates get underway.

With a month (or less, in some instances) remaining in the high school regular season, let’s take a look at the week ahead in Southeastern Pennsylvania high school and college basketball.

For the next couple weeks, with so much going on in the high school world and the college schedule just grinding through league play, we’re going to focus on high school games to watch, with college games included on the full schedule below. 

Just like last week, we’ll go league-by-league with important games to watch:

(click on this link for of Josh’s picks of games-to-watch)

Emily Huggins and the Penncrest girls basketball proved Saturday that they are for real.

Huggins scored six of her game-high 13 points in the fourth quarter as the Lions rallied from an eight-point halftime deficit and defeated Haverford, 44-38, in Central League action.

Haverford jumped out to an 8-0 lead and held an 18-10 advantage after one quarter, but host Penncrest stormed back to cut the deficit to two at halftime.

Alex Bruce and Sheldon Viau were relentless on defense, quieting Haverford’s best player Rian Dotsey (11 points), who was held to three points in the second half.

Bruce hit a pair of 3-pointers in the third quarter and ended with 10 points. Viau scored all eight of her points in the third.

The Fords (9-2), the reigning league champs, entered the day in second place behind undefeated Conestoga (11-0). The Lions (8-2) have won five straight decisions.

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Keara McCaffrey dominated in the post Friday night, with 18 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks as Sacred Heart bested Faith Christian, 43-27.

Megan Donahoe chipped in 11 points for the Lions. Grace Brown paired seven points with five assists and three steals.

Agnes Irwin 47, Springside Chestnut Hill 43 >> Simone Harvey connected on four 3-pointers for a team-high 13 points as the Owls opened up the Inter-Ac slate with a victory.

Mairyn Dwyer scored seven points. Milan Harvey and Sarah Shelton contributed six apiece.

Chester 56, Penn Wood 50 >> Ja’Mya Muhammad scored a game-high 23 points as the Clippers topped the Patriots in both teams’ Del Val opener late Thursday evening. Muhammad added seven rebounds.

Imani Dorsey tossed in 14 points. Shyne Hall had seven points and six rebounds.

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By Andrew Robinson

It felt all too familiar for Thomas Sorber.

After dropping their Philadelphia Catholic League opener against St. Joe’s Prep on Tuesday, Sorber and his Archbishop Ryan teammates had come out slow against Archbishop Carroll on Friday. While it was a familiar start with some familiar miscues, it ended very differently.

A second-half commitment to defense and toughness, plus a good helping from the big man, led the Raiders to a 53-46 over the Patriots for the team’s first PCL win this season.

“That Prep game really taught us a lesson,” Sorber said. “We can’t take any opponents lightly, but coming into this game it was the same thing as the first game. Then in the second half we started turning it up.”

The Georgetown-bound Sorber continued his recent run of rampancy with another robust outing. He posted 26 points, grabbed 14 rebounds, had a pair of assists on Rocco Morabito 3-pointers and did his usual on defense with seven blocks. Following the slow start, the 6-foot-9 senior had 15 of those points in the first half to keep the Raiders within four at the break.

(click on this link for the full article)

By Owen McCue

 After having its dominant run at the top of the Del-Val League cut short last winter, the Chester boys basketball team entered 2023-24 on a “Payback Tour”.

The first stop was Penn Wood High School on Thursday night.

Chester climbed out an early hole to come away with a 59-50 win to open league play.

.“It’s time for our get back,” senior Dante Atkinson said. “It’s get back time now. It’s payback time. We call it the Payback Tour. All of the rest of these league games, it’s time for our getback. Last year, we missed out. This year it’s go time.” 

Atkinson is in the driver’s seat of the tour bus. 

He was around two District 1 championship teams in his first two years with the program and remembers sitting on the bench during the team’s run in 2021-22.

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