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Prepping for Preps '16-17: Haverford School

10/05/2016, 10:45am EDT
By Josh Verlin

Kharon Randolph (above) and the Fords exceeded expectations in 2015-16, with a lot of experience returning. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This story is part of CoBL’s “Prepping for Preps” series, which will take a look at many of the top high school programs in the region as part of our 2016-17 season preview coverage. The complete list of schools previewed so far can be found here.)

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By almost any measure, the first year of Bernie Rodgers’ reign at The Haverford School was a successful one.

All that’s done is raise the bar significantly for the second time around.

“We had a lot of doubt last year, going into the season,” junior guard Kharon Randolph said at a September workout. “Right now, (our confidence) is at a very high level.”

Expectations for the Fords were as low as they’d been in a while coming into 2015-16, with the top four scorers from the year before -- the only four to score more than 36 points total on the season -- all departing via graduation or transfer. Also gone was former head coach Henry Fairfax, who left for an administrative position at Girard College.

At a program that hasn’t traditionally been a strong one in the six-team Inter-Ac, it seemed like the definitive end to a rather short era. It was an era, though, that had seen the school produce a Division I talent (Temple’s Levan Alston, Jr.) and the team feature several other talented players like Lamar Stevens (Penn State), Sean Lloyd (Southern Illinois) and five-star 2018 guard Cameron Reddish, now at the Westtown School, for a season or two.

Rogers, who came to The Haverford School after 14 years at Archbishop Ryan, had a tall task on his hands.

But despite starting two unproven sophomores in the backcourt -- with two freshmen also seeing big minutes in what was typically a seven or eight-man rotation -- the Fords opened eyes early with December wins against Father Judge and the Hun School. They also closed out the season strong, winning four of their last six games, including a win over Friends’ Central in the first round of the state independent school playoffs.

At the end of the year, a 10-15 record (4-6 Inter-Ac) wasn’t making anybody in the program unhappy.

"I thought we got better as the season went on, beating Friends’ Central in the PAISAA game was a good win for us,” Rodgers said. “If you look back…(Germantown Academy) and Episcopal were the only teams we couldn’t beat at least once, we beat everybody else at least once.”

“You could just tell that we were getting better over the season,” Randolph agreed. “It felt good.”

With the majority of the core now returning instead of departing, expectations are again on the rise at the prestigious Lancaster Avenue institution.

Randolph (16.1 ppg) is back to lead the way, and the 5-foot-10 point guard who can get to the basket when he wants will once again have to shoulder a large part of the scoring burden while now starting to serve in more of a leadership role now that he’s an upperclassman.

“I’m definitely going into the season looking to be a leader and just picking up my guys, making sure that I’m coaching while I’m on the floor,” he said. “That’s one of the big things going into the season for me.”

Also returning is fellow junior point guard Joe Dignazio, a starter who averaged 4.0 ppg, as well as promising sophomore Gavin Burke, who averaged 7.8 ppg as a freshman but showed what he can do with a 24-point showing against Malvern Prep and 18-point outing against Penn Charter late in the league schedule. Another sophomore, 6-5 Asim Richards (4.4 ppg), is a strong presence inside and a talented football player as well.

Even though the Fords might not have a senior amongst their top six or seven scorers this year, it’s a group that’s not so young anymore.

“Us being a year back, a year stronger, I just think some of the experience will help us naturally get better,” Rodgers said. “And us as much as it might have been hard last year, I think in the long run, a lot of these kids are only juniors -- Kharon, Joey (Dignazio), Gavin (Floyd) is only a sophomore, these guys played a lot of minutes already.”


Christian Ray (above) averaged 22.5 ppg as a sophomore at Octorara. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

They’ll also benefit from the addition of Christian Ray, the former Octorara standout who enrolled at the private school this fall and reclassified from 2018 to 2019, repeating his sophomore year.

A 6-5 wing guard with Division I offers already on the table, Ray averaged 22.5 ppg as a sophomore at Octorara. With the ability to score inside and out, he’ll likely play something of a stretch-forward for an otherwise guard-heavy Fords.

“He’s like a guard but he’s playing the ‘4’, and it’s going to help us a lot offensively and defensively,” Randolph said. “He can rebound, facilitate, score, it’s going to help us all around.”

Though Germantown Academy has won the last four league titles, and Episcopal Academy -- led by recent Navy commit Nick Alikakos -- has been the primary challenger the last couple of seasons, the Fords are thinking they insert themselves into the conversation this year.

No matter that the last time it happened was in 1999, when the members of this years’ roster were (mostly) not yet born.

“We all talk about it, we all know that we haven’t won the (Inter-Ac) championship in 18 years,” Randolph said. “So this is the year that we’re looking to win it.”


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