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Downingtown West finds its new coach in Stuart Ross

06/22/2016, 3:30pm EDT
By Jeff Griffith

Jeff Griffith (@Jeff_Griffith21)
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Over the last few years, Downingtown West’s basketball program has been led into District 1 prominence by a three-headed monster--Josh Warren, Ryan Betley, and Dom Guerrera. When those three were sophomores, the Whippets weren’t even a playoff team, but by the time they reached their senior year this past winter, they had helped West earn the No. 3 seed in the district playoffs.  

Warren, Betley, and Guerrera, recent graduates bound to play at the collegiate level in the fall -- at Cornell, Penn and West Chester, respectively -- aren’t the only ones leaving holes in the program. The man who was there with them through all of it, head coach Jason Ritter, stepped down at the beginning of April to make more time for his growing family.

Safe to say, the departure of not just three talented players, but also the coach who helped mold them, left big shoes to fill at Downingtown West.

Enter Stuart Ross, who spent his last three seasons at Collegium Charter. Ross was offered the position just a few days after the school district’s monthly board meeting in May, and became the official hire following the June board meeting last week. Now, he’ll be faced with the task of filling the Ches-Mont champion-sized hole left by Ritter.

“(Downingtown West) won fifty games over the last two years with coach Ritter, they’ve done a great job,” said Ross. “Now it’s my job and my staff’s job and mold the team into what our vision is and to have it take on my identity.”

Ross’ incoming roster includes the likes of talented 6-7 senior George Gordon, who enters his second straight year with a starting role, as well as two senior guards in Wayne Anderson and Pat Kennedy who both saw time at the point guard position as juniors. Six-foot-5 wing Matt Carson will also be expected to fulfill a larger role than he did in his junior season.

Having been able to meet with his future players at a couple of open gyms and at a summer league in, Ross has high expectations based on what he’s seen.

“I don’t feel like we should have any drop-off from what coach Ritter already built,” said Ross. “I felt like the juniors and sophomore classes are very strong, the roster has a lot of versatility, a lot of size, so it allows to be able to go out and be competitive night in and night out, and I fully expect us to be in the Ches-Mont conversation for winning the league.”

Prior to coaching at Collegium, Ross worked as the head coach for Kennett High School and Penn State Brandywine, where he won the Coach of the Year award for PSUAC. An alumnus of the Phil-Mont Christian School and West Chester University programs, he also held assistant coaching positions at Glen Mills and his alma mater, WCU.

According to Ross, leaving Collegium in particular was a difficult decision to make, but in the end, the opportunity to run a higher-level program like Downingtown West was too much to pass up.

“I am going to miss Collegium, I think it’s a great place,” said Ross. “When I resigned from Penn State Brandywine and took the job at Collegium, I did it with the intention of staying there. My daughter and my son both go there and I was hoping to be there long enough to possibly coach them.”

“It was something my family and I sat down and talked about, Downingtown West was just too good of an opportunity to pass up.”

Now that the decision has officially been made, Ross is ready to take on the challenge, and has already begun making connections with his players and the feeder program at Downingtown Middle School.

Based on everything he’s seen since taking the first steps of being the head coach at West, he believes there’s a lot to looking forward to for him, his new team, and the Downingtown community.

“I’m very excited about the possibilities, I feel like they’re limitless, there’s so much we can accomplish,” Ross added. “The future is very bright for Downingtown West, and I’m really excited about getting started. I wish it was October already.”

 


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