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Prepping for Preps '16-17: Archbishop Ryan

10/18/2016, 4:30am EDT
By Jeff Griffith

Jeff Griffith (@Jeff_Griffith21)
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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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Coming into last season, not many people outside or even inside of the Archbishop Ryan's boys basketball program knew how good they could be.

The Raiders, who had often been a middle-of-the-pack team in the Philadelphia Catholic League, ended up playing Cinderella, reaching the PCL semis and coming within one win of a PIAA AAAA state tournament bid.

The tone entering the 2016-17 campaign -- the second under head coach and former Raider Joe Zeglinski -- is a bit different.

“I think, first year you’re trying to settle in, and we did that last year,” Zeglinski said. “Now the guys know what’s coming, this summer they were really ready to go from day one of workouts, really competing with each other a lot more this year...I think they’re ready.”

“Last year, they were a little unsure of how good they could be,” he added. “This year they expect to be good, very good.”

Behind senior guard and NJIT commit Izaiah Brockington, as well as experienced classmates like 6-8 Fred Taylor and 6-7 Matiss Kulackovskis, the Ryan reputation has gone from pleasant surprise to viable contender in the region’s premier basketball conference.

The Raiders also added a transfer from Math, Civics, and Sciences in talented sophomore guard Jaquill Stone.

With graduated seniors like current Holy Family guard Austin Chabot, as well as guard Austin Slawter and forward Freddie Killian no longer around, the focus will turn to those new upperclassmen leaders to continue the winning pattern last year’s team put in motion.

“We were learning how to win last year, and by the end of the season those seniors really stepped up, so now it’s a new group of seniors that need to least us as we build that chemistry,” Zeglinski said. “We built a culture last year of family and a winning mentality. We need to keep that going.”

For the seniors, and Brockington in particular, it’s beginning to set in that this is their final opportunity to don the Archbishop Ryan black and red.

“It’s crazy, it seems like just yesterday I was a freshman, all wide-eyed,” he said. “Now it’s like you’ve become one of them, you’re the person kids look up to, it’s a great feeling.”

The main focus will certainly be on Brockington, who became the lone Division I commit on Ryan’s roster when he pledged to NJIT in early August.

With the college decision off of his back, and a year under his belt with Zeglinski at the helm, Brockington is playing much more relaxed basketball and is able to hone his focus on leading this team to its goals.

According to the 6-foot-4 guard, he doesn’t feel pressed to show off for college coaches, and can now focus solely on his team and his own coaches, with whom he and his teammates feel substantially more comfortable after a year under the new staff.

“It feels a lot more comfortable, we’re definitely used to his style, not just his style of play but also his style of coaching,” Brockington said. “His mentality is really starting to permeate to the whole team, when he first came last year and was talking about the Palestra, every body looked at him like, ‘we didn’t even make it out of the first round last year.’”

“It’s just really great to see his mentality, he wants everything done right,” he added.

Of course, Ryan figured out last year that it can compete in its extremely competitive league; whether the mention of the Palestra seemed realistic to the players at the start of Zeglinski’s first year or not, it became a reality four short months later.

What’s particularly sticking with them, however, are two losses: a PCL semifinal loss to Neumann-Goretti and a District 12 AAAA loss to Simon Gratz have provided some motivation heading into the new season.

“We talk about that all the time, the Gratz loss and the Neumann loss, it just kind of stung,” Brockington said. “It felt like we needed to finish what we started last year, so we’re just coming back harder, with a vengeance this year.”

Zeglinski certainly hit his team with high expectations last year, and it paid off, but the biggest difference in 2016-17 is that this group of Raiders wholeheartedly believes it can accomplish something special.

“Our message is to win one game at a time,” Zeglinski said. “Our goal is to win a Catholic League championship. I don’t think if I said that to them last year they would have believed me...this year I think everyone has bought in that we can win the Catholic League.”


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