City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADrobinson3)
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ARDMORE — When Radnor’s girls’ basketball team is going its best, it takes five.

The Raptors’ five starters range from seniors to sophomores, with three returners and two newcomers sharing one continuity on the court. 

Radnor’s first five all did their part Thursday night, downing host Lower Merion 67-53 in the Central League.

“Our relationship off the court is what translates onto the court,” senior Kate Gallagher said. “We get along really well, we want each other to succeed, and I think that’s what really shows.”

Sophomore Anna Reger led the Raptors with 17 points, the speedy guard adding four assists and four steals. Senior Blayse Jennings, one of the newcomers not only to the starting lineup but the team this year, had 15 points, two steals, a block and two assists and sophomore guard Nyah Yao added 14 points and seven rebounds.

Gallagher nearly made it four in double figures, the senior guard and Army lacrosse commit settling for nine points, four assists and two steals. Rounding out the balanced effort by the five was senior Caroline Monahan with six points, two assists and three steals.

Radnor starting lineup (L to R): Kate Gallagher, Blayse Jennings, Caroline Monahan, Anna Reger, Nyah Yao. (Photo: Andrew Robinson/CoBL)

That added up to 61 points, 12 assists and 12 steals from the Raptors starters.

“We’re all really connected and we just care about each other a lot,” Jennings said. “We want to win for each other, so it’s bigger than just basketball.”

Thursday’s win bumped Radnor to 11-4 on the season, the Raptors holding the No. 4 spot in the District 1 5A power rankings. At 6-3 in the Central League, Radnor is tied for third with Penncrest, although the Raptors own the head-to-head win from way back on Dec. 7 in the season’s first week.

Last season, the Raptors earned the No. 6 spot in districts but got upended at home by No. 11 Phoenixville in the first round. It was a point of contention then and a point of emphasis now.

“I feel like our season was cut short last year,” Reger said. “This year, we recognize the potential we have and we want to do all we can with it.”

It didn’t take long for Radnor to pick up on its potential. Gallagher and Monahan started all last year, Reger taking a spot in the first five by the end of the season, so there was a solid core in place. Yao quickly filled in while Jennings, who began her high school career in New York while her mom Anita was on the Fordham women’s coaching staff, plugged into the other spot.

Jennings had ties to the area — her mom played at St. Joe’s and her older sister Harlem was part of Archbishop Carroll’s PCL title team in 2018-19 then played at USciences. The senior plays up as Radnor’s main post player, but her athleticism is a solid fit with the other four starters to form a versatile group that accents each other well.

“In preseason, we realized just how good we could be,” Yao said. “As we’ve kept playing and practicing, we’ve come together a lot more, so we’re always looking to pass the ball.”

Yao, who was named the MVP of the George Snear tournament the team won during the holiday break, added that the Raptors have only gotten better at sharing the ball as they’ve better learned each other’s tendencies.  Reger and Jennings had a good thing going to start the fourth, one assisting the other on the Raptors’ first three baskets before Gallagher found Reger outpacing the defense for a layup to cap an 8-4 spurt.

“Everyone’s so good, you know you can rely on every single person in the lineup,” Monahan said. “You know you can rely on every person to score and every person to help out on defense.”

“One person can get hot in one quarter, then the next person gets hot in the next quarter,” Gallagher said. “I think it’s hard to guard us, if you shut off one person then the other four are going to score.”

The senior was right about that on Thursday. Jennings had five and Monahan four in the first quarter, Jennings and Yao then combining for 10 points in the second quarter. After halftime, it was Yao, Gallagher and Reger combining for 16 of the Raptors’ 20 third quarter points, while Reger and Jennings tallied 11 between them in the fourth.

With an opportunistic defense, Radnor knew it could create steals and turnovers going into the season. Where the team has grown is getting numbers out on the break when it does, most of Thursday’s runouts off steals either having a second player getting down the floor, a trailer or someone getting out ahead of the break for a hit-ahead pass.

“Our defense has always been our strength from the beginning,” Gallagher said. “We’ve developed offensively a lot more.”

“It’s become a lot more natural as we’ve played more,” Jennings said. “On defense, we’re always talking to each other and when one person gets a steal, everyone wants to run the court, so there’s a lot of opportunities made that way. Tonight, Anna got a ton of steals and it made opportunities for other people, that’s something that’s gotten a lot better for us.”

The team hit a rough patch with three straight losses to Central League heavyweights Garnet Valley, Conestoga and Haverford between Jan. 4-9. It was a tough five-day stretch for sure, but one the team took as a lesson.

If the Raptors want to be as good as they think they can be, they saw that they have to bring every game but especially against the upper tier teams in their league then again in the postseason.

“I think after that, we actually realized how tough we are,” Jennings said. “It showed us that we have to put the effort in every day and looking back now, I think we all want a second try at those teams and we know we can make it a better game.”

“It was motivation,” Gallagher added. “We had that rough run with ‘Stoga, Garnet and Haverford so we know we have to make a statement in each of the games we have left, because it’s all going to go toward our seeding. It was a wake up call.”

The Raptors starters don’t see themselves as three seniors and a pair of sophomores, or as three returners and two new additions. They’re just five good basketball players who bring the best out of each other when they share the court.

It’s worked well so far, but they know it’ll take five to keep going the direction they want to.

“I don’t even think about it,” Gallagher said. “They (the sophomores) play so experienced while we (the seniors) have the experience, so it just blends really well. It’s really easy to play with this group.”

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RADNOR 67, LOWER MERION 53

It took the Raptors a few minutes to get going Thursday, but once Monahan sank a pair of foul shots for an 8-7 lead with 1:57 left in the opening quarter, they didn’t look back.

With Radnor taking turns sharing the ball and the hot hand, the visitors led 15-9 after one and 30-23 at the half. It turned up after halftime, a 9-3 run opening the third quarter and a 9-1 run closing it for a 50-32 lead.

The Raptors’ balance was too much for the Aces despite a game-high 18 points from center Megan Walters. The junior post player did a nice job scoring, mainly down low but she also hit a midrange shot and showed some good hands to bring in teammates passes over a swarming Radnor defense.

A three by Reger, who tallied seven total points in the fourth, put Radnor ahead 61-39 with 5:20 to go before the teams started to give the reserves some extended minutes.

By Quarter

Radnor:          15 | 15 | 20 | 17 || 67

Lower Merion: 9 | 14 | 9 | 11 || 53

Scoring
R: Anna Reger 17, Blayse Jennings 15, Nyah Yao 14, Kate Gallagher 9, Caroline Monahan 6, Bree Simpson 4, Riley d’Entremont 2

LM: Megan Walters 18, Lindsay Gillston 9, Lianna Wang 6, Arry Glover 6, Alex Dore 5, Alexa Braslow 4, Allison Pham 2