Delcohoops.com

By Josh Verlin

Of the several dozen events that Jeremy Treatman’s Scholastic Play-By-Play organization puts on over the course of each high school season, there’s none as big as the Pete & Jameer Nelson Classic, certainly at least in terms of the number of games and overall length of the event. The Nelson Classic has grown to encompass three games of days spread over a four-day weekend, at three different locations.

Below you can find the full event schedule, as well as a brief glimpse of each of the game’s best days and players.

Monday, Dec. 30
Widener University
St. Joseph’s Prep vs. Penncrest (11:45 AM)
Abington vs. La Salle (1:30 PM)
Malvern Prep vs. Norristown (3:15 PM)
Bishop McDevitt vs. Germantown Academy (5:00 PM)
Coatesville vs. Cheltenham (6:45 PM)
Chester vs. Haverford School (8:30 PM) (Game-of-the-Week broadcast on Delcohoops.com)

(click on this link for the complete weekend Play-by-Play schedule)

By Josh Verlin

Every big shot Archbishop Ryan made on Sunday afternoon, Cardinal O’Hara had a response.

No bigger example of that than the end of the third quarter, when Ryan sophomore Luke Boyd made a running 3-pointer at the buzzer, cutting the O’Hara lead five eight to five, sending the Ryan crowd into a tizzy, anticipating the comeback. It didn’t happen. Instead, O’Hara started the fourth calm as ever, senior guard Tre Dinkins knocking down a 3-pointer to push the lead to eight.

That was how it went the rest of the fourth: every Raider punch was beat with a Lion counter, every sense of momentum built by the home team stolen back by the visitors. O’Hara got buckets when it needed to, hit foul shots when it needed to, and stayed unbeaten thanks to a 76-68 win, continuing one of the early surprise stories of the 2019-20 season.

“Last year, I think we would have folded…now I think we’re prepared for it, especially on the road, when the crowd was getting wild (after) hat bank shot to end the [third] quarter,” head coach Ryan Nemetz said. “A team could lose it and argue in the huddle, [but] our guys stuck together and continued to work and it was awesome. I was really proud of our guys.”

(click on this link for the full story)

Alex Capitano made sure Episcopal Academy’s losing streak came to an end.

Capitano poured in 40 points to help the Churchmen snap a six-game slide with an 87-73 victory over Western Reserve in the seventh-place game at the Mercer Invitational at the Hill School.

Capitano hit six 3-pointers and was 6-for-7 from the free throw line. Sam Malloy added 16 points and Matt McCarthy chipped in with 11 for EA.

In other nonleague action:

Shipley 61, Haverford School 56 >> The Gators shot 9-for-10 from the free throw line and outscored the Fords, 25-20 in the fourth quarter.

Christian Clover poured in 15 of his game-high 26 points in the fourth to try to keep the Fords in the game. Tyler Seward contributed 12 points.

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

Akeem Taylor came through when Chester needed him most.

Taylor hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to send the game with South Philadelphia High to overtime, then tallied the first four points of the extra session to put the Clippers up for good in a 79-74 nonleague victory.

Taylor set his career-high as a Clipper with 24 points. (He’d had three 30-point games as a sophomore at Chester Charter School for the Arts). Rahmee Gilbert added a career-best 23 points, and Fareed Burton and Karell Watkins added 13 points each. All the points came from Chester’s starting five.

Southern took the lead into halftime thanks to a 30-13 edge in the second quarter, but Chester stormed back with a 27-11 third quarter, powered by 10 points from Gilbert and nine from Taylor. Gilbert was 11-for-13 from the line, and Chester (4-1) converted on eight of its 12 trips to the charity stripe in the extra session.

In other nonleague action:

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

By Josh Verlin

Lower Merion senior Eli Rothman rattles the numbers off with ease.

“Eleven new guys, 11 seniors who left…4500 points left our team, and only 39 return.”

That’s the stark reality for Gregg Downer’s Aces. For the last four years, the proud program on Montgomery Avenue has been all about its 2019 class, a group which started with five freshmen on the varsity squad and grew to one short of a dozen by the time they were done. And it wasn’t just the size of the class, it was the talent: eight of those freshmen are playing sports in college, including six playing hoops.

Sharpshooting wing Jack Forrest is at Columbia, high-scoring guard Steve Payne doing a prep year at the Perkiomen School with either a D-I or D-II scholarship in his future, forward Josh Martin is playing at Penn State-Harrisburg, guard Julian Hairston at West Chester, guard Theo Henry at Tufts, guard Darryl Taylor at Northampton CC. Two others, Matt O’Connor and Jalen Goodman, are on the football team at Villanova.

That left the 2019-20 cupboard, as Rothman noted, pretty bare on returning production.

(click on this link for the full story)