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2021-22 City 6 WBB Preseason City 6 Honor Roll

11/03/2021, 12:15am EDT
By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of our 2021-22 season coverage, which will run for the six weeks preceding the first official games of the year on Nov. 9. To access all of our high school and college preview content for this season, click here.)

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Every preseason, CoBL picks its Preseason All-City 6 awards, our best guess at who’s going to have successful years ahead based on recent performance and a bit of projection. With our expansion to covering the women’s game this year, we wanted to similarly recognize the best players in the city.


Briana Herlihy (above) is one of many returning stars to the City 6's WBB squads. (Photo: Mark Jordan/CoBL)

However, we didn’t feel it appropriate to pick a set of preseason All-City awards when we haven’t yet covered any games or gotten the chance to properly evaluate everybody’s specific impact on the floor and on their team. 

Instead, we felt the best thing to do this preseason was to have an Honor Roll of players from each of the City 6 who deserve recognition for the careers they’ve had thus far and their high individual expectations for the upcoming season. They’re the players who would make up those City 6 Preseason Teams, just not put into any specific order.

Here are two City 6 players from each squad you need to know for the 2021-22 season:

Jasha Clinton (Fr./Temple)
Clinton’s first freshman season went so well, she gets to do it all over again. The 2021 Big 5 Rookie of the Year, who made the AAC’s All-Freshman team and was First Team All-Big 5, averaged 14.4 ppg and 4.1 apg, throwing in better than two steals per contest to boot. A 5-8 guard from Princess Anne (Va.), Clinton got stronger as the year went on, scoring in double figures in the last 11 games of the season, with three straight 20+ outings to close it out. And she has four more years of eligibility. Watch out.

Mia Davis (Gr./Temple)
Even if Mia Davis didn’t suit up for Temple in another game, she’s already established herself as one of the best players in TU history. A 6-0 forward from St. Frances Academy (Md.), Davis is a four-year standout who’s started in all 112 games she’s played, putting her on pace to break the program’s games played record (134). She’s already third on the school’s scoring list (1,849 points), third in rebounds (969), third in field goals, first in free throws and second in attempts. The 2021-22 AAC Preseason Player of the Year averaged 17.7 ppg and 7.6 rpg as a senior, which were slight drop-offs from her junior year production (18.8 ppg/10.2 rpg).

Brianna Herlihy (Gr./Villanova)
Entering her sixth year of college, Herlihy is one of the most experienced players not just in the city but in all of college hoops. A 6-0 wing forward out of Braintree (Mass.), Herlihy has had an interesting road at Villanova, from redshirting as a freshman in 2016-17 and averaging fewer than 3.0 ppg each of the next two years, then missing all but two games of the 2019-20 season due to injury. Finally getting her chance to shine last year, the Big 5 Most Improved Player averaged 13.8 ppg and 7.1 rpg, leading her team with 30 blocks.

Kaliah Henderson (Jr./Saint Joseph’s)
A 2,000-point scorer during her tenure at Robinson High School (Fla.), Henderson only took two years to become the Hawks’ leading scorer, doing so with 11.4 ppg as a sophomore. A 5-10 guard, Henderson was an All-Big 5 Second Team selection last year after more than doubling her scoring average from her freshman year. She came on especially strong in the second half of the season, averaging 14.6 ppg over the closing nine games of the season, topping off with a career-best 20-point outing in their season-ending loss to UMass in the A-10 playoffs.

Claire Jacobs (Jr./La Salle)
Halfway through her college career — though she’s still a sophomore by eligibility — Jacobs is on pace to be one of the best scorers to ever put on an Explorers’ uniform. The fastest player in program history to 500 points, Jacobs led La Salle in scoring as both a freshman (13.7 ppg) and a sophomore (16.3 ppg), with seven games of 20 or more last season. A 6-0 guard from Perth, Australia, Jacobs was a first team All-Big 5 selection last year while also averaging 4.5 rpg, 1.8 spg and 1.3 apg.


Katie Jekot (above), the second of four Jekot siblings, was St. Joe's best 3-point shooter last year. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Katie Jekot (Gr./Saint Joseph’s)
The second of the four Jekot sisters — older sister Kelly Jekot is a grad transfer at Penn State and younger sister Julie Jekot is a freshman at La Salle, with Jillian Jekot only a sophomore in high school — Katie is one of three grad students on the SJU roster. The Hawks’ point guard led the team with 4.1 apg last year to go along with 9.6 ppg, good for second-best on the team, and she was their best 3-point shooter too, going 31-of-89 (34.8%); that was good enough to earn her a spot on the All-Big 5 Second Team. Enters the season within 300 points of 1,000 for her career.

Nikola Kovacikova (Sr./Penn)
The Quakers have only taken four transfers in 13 seasons under head coach Mike McLaughlin, so it’s safe to say McLaughlin really needed to see something in Kovacikova to bring her on board. The former Georgetown guard averaged 7.9 ppg, 3.2 rpg and 2.4 apg as a sophomore on the Hoyas’ roster in 2019-20, then transferred to Penn for her junior year, which was cancelled entirely due to the pandemic. Now one of the Quakers’ most experienced guards even though she’s yet to officially wear the Red & Blue, the 5-10 guard from Slovakia with significant FIBA experience will play a major role this winter.

Hannah Nihill (Sr./Drexel)
As if Nihill hadn’t done enough in her Drexel career — four-year starter, All-CAA First Team, CAA championship, CAA Rookie of the Year, CAA Defensive Player of the Year — she decided to use her extra year of eligibility to join the field hockey team, playing plenty on the pitch this fall. Now back in her basketball uniform, Nihill is coming off a season where she averaged 16.3 ppg and 3.8 apg, shooting 36.8% from 3-point range, all of which led her team. Did we mention she’s only 5-2?


Kayla Padilla (above) was Penn's leading scorer as a freshman two years ago. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Kayla Padilla (Jr./Penn)
Padilla got her Quakers career off to about as good a start as you can get. The 2019-20 Ivy League Rookie of the Year, Padilla averaged 17.4 ppg and 2.4 apg, making 40% of her 3-point shots on 183 attempts, as well as shooting 77.9% from the line. But then COVID cancelled the Quakers’ 2020-21 season, meaning Padilla is now suddenly an upperclassman and one of the top players in the entire Ivy League. All eyes are on the Torrance (Cali.) native to see what she does to build on that first year.

Maddy Siegrist (Jr./Villanova)
As our Mitchell Northam chronicled last week, Siegrist has had something of a fairy-tale time at Villanova thus far. After redshirting as a freshman, the Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) native wasted no time establishing herself as a force in the Big East, averaging 18.8 ppg and 8.9 rpg as a redshirt freshmen, then building on that with a sophomore year that saw her earn Big 5 Player of the Year honors and honorable mention All-American after averaging 22.8 ppg and 9.8 rpg while playing nearly 35 minutes per contest. And she’s got three years of eligibility left if she wants to use them all. 

Kayla Spruill (Sr./La Salle)
Arguably the best shooter in the city last year, Spruill led the entire Atlantic 10 in 3-point field goal percentage as a junior (41-of-95, .432), helping her to average 15.0 ppg. A Baltimore (Md.) native, Spruill — a 6-0 wing — has upped her scoring production significantly each year, from 5.0 ppg as a freshman to 11.0 as a sophomore, so if that continues she could be in for a massive senior year. Last year, Spruill was named to both the A-10 and All-Big 5 Second Team. 

Keishana Washington (Sr./Drexel)
The CAA Tournament MVP as Drexel won the 2021 league championship, Washington is a dynamic 5-7 guard who plays way bigger than her frame. As a junior, the Durham Prep (Ont.) product averaged 14.6 ppg and 3.5 rpg, but exploded for 35 points against James Madison in the CAA semifinals, then followed that up with a 30-point outing in the championship game. Washington has come close to both double-digit assist and rebound numbers before, so it’s not impossible that she could flirt with a triple-double this season.

Freshmen to Watch
Talya Brugler (Saint Joseph’s)
Lizzy Groetsch (Penn)
Julie Jekot (La Salle)
Momo Laclair (Drexel)
Kaitlyn Orihel (Villanova)
Kyra Wood (Temple)


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