Delcohoops.com

By Joseph Santoliquito

It’s been a decade since Chester has been to the PIAA state finals. And the Clippers know it. It’s been over a decade since Chester last won a state championship. And the Clippers know that, too. It’s a highly respected program, the Pennsylvania high school boys’ basketball equivalent to the New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, and Montreal Canadiens.

No other team has won more Pennsylvania state boys’ basketball championships than Chester (eight).

Keith Taylor Sr. will be entering his sixth year as head coach of the Clippers and has been associated with the program for over 25 years. He’s going to be the head coach when the Clippers win their 2,000th game in program history this season. Chester is seven games shy of that iconic mark. Reading is the only other boys’ high school basketball program in Pennsylvania with more than 2,000 school victories and Chester would be the 10th nationally to achieve such status.

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By Jack McCaffery

For as long as Keith Taylor could remember,  which is to say his whole life, the formula was solid, successful, bold and purposeful. So naturally, the sixth-year Chester High basketball coach would follow it again, confidently and without question.

The task was scheduling, and the attitude was unwavering, a bring-on-any-challenger crescendo of confidence.

You want to play?

OK.

Where, when … and what door do you want us to leave by after we win?

So it will be again this season, at Ninth and Barclay and in various stops around a handful of states, that the Clippers will endeavor to use a rough, out-of-conference schedule to toughen up for the postseason tournaments and the eternal, obsessive, single-minded goal of winning a state championship. That will begin Friday night at 7 against visiting West Philadelphia and eventually include encounters with Downingtown West, Lower Merion, Reading, Coatesville, Bartram, Chambersburg and Overbrook, classic Eastern Pennsylvania programs one and all.

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By Matthew DeGeorge

Jackson Hicke was busy working in early July, so he missed the call from Cooper Mueller.

When he finally called back his Radnor boys basketball teammate, Hicke got news that brought a smile to his face. Mueller, a midfielder on Radnor’s state title-winning lacrosse team, had committed to Princeton, where Hicke had pledged his basketball future just a week earlier.

“I was like, that’s awesome,” Hicke said at practice Monday. “He could go wherever he wanted to go in the country, and I knew his family history there and it’s a great school. I’m super pumped to be able to spend another four years with him.”

Before their adventures in the Ivy League, the Radnor teammates have business to attend to on the court, a culmination years in the making. A core of Raptors connected since elementary school have grown together, some contributing to varsity since their freshman years. That group is now a nine-strong senior class, led by a quartet of college players.

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By Matthew DeGeorge

Nine Delaware County boys basketball teams qualified for PIAA tournaments last season, all in the state’s top three classifications. They accounted for 12 wins, two state semifinals runs and, well, four maddening losses to Imhotep Charter on the way to its Class 5A title.

Following up such a landmark year, even by the bloated standards of the PIAA’s super-sized states fields, will be difficult. But if it transpires, Delco’s Philadelphia Catholic League teams will likely be the ones pushing the envelope.

Cardinal O’Hara returns the Player of the Year in Izaiah Pasha, who recently committed to Iona. The 6-4 guard wasn’t eligible to play in states last year due to PIAA transfer rules but will be eligible this season if the Lions get there. They would not have last year without Pasha’s 16.9 points-per-game average.

While O’Hara has to retool around him, they return a double-figures scorer in Josh Coulanges (10.4). Pearse McGuinn, the 6-8 forward who averaged 9.1 ppg last year and made big strides of late, is also back, and O’Hara added junior Aasim Burton, a transfer from Math, Civics and Science with Division I offers.

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By Matt Smith

The top four teams from a year ago all have championship goals for this season in what should be a competitively balanced Central League.

Reigning champion Garnet Valley made a run starting in the middle of that 2021-22 season and never looked back, winning its first league championship since 2019. The Jaguars went 20-11 overall, and advanced to the District 1 Class 6A quarterfinals and PIAA tournament.

Veteran leaders Ava Possenti and Katelyn Dugery graduated, but sophomore Haylie Adamski, who had a wonderful freshman campaign, and junior forward Emily Olsen are returning starters under coach Joe Woods, who begins his 20th season at GV.

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By Matt Smith

Molly Rullo is too modest and team-oriented to ever admit that she is now the No. 1 player at Cardinal O’Hara.

She is the face of the latest generation of Rullo basketball greats, a lineage that stretches back nearly 80 years ago, when her grandfather Jerry Rullo starred at Temple and later won an NBA title with the Philadelphia Warriors.

Rullo’s freshman season was close to perfection. She fit in from the start with senior leaders Maggie Doogan, Sydni Scott and Annie Welde. Rullo was an excellent outside shooter and defender and scored from all areas. She played an important role in a magical season for the Lions, who won the Philadelphia Catholic League championship and a second consecutive PIAA Class 5A title. Rullo averaged 10.5 points and five rebounds per game while shooting 40 percent from 3-point distance.

“I’m super excited for this year,” Rullo said before practice Tuesday. “Last year was really awesome. I think just getting back into the environment again is important, like playing the PCL teams and getting great competition from everyone else we play. 

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