City of Basketball Love

Jerome Taylor (@ThatGuy_Rome)
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Once Jackson Hicke pulled down the defensive rebound, he hit his stride quickly and got to the rim for a coast-to-coast finish. 

The very next play, he drove down the middle of the lane, finished a layup through contact and completed the and-one. Hicke’s personal 5-0 run sent Radnor to the locker room at halftime with an eight-point lead over Haverford. 

And they didn’t look back. 

The junior finished with 21 points and 15 rebounds in the 53-38 victory, and now the Raptors are heading to the Central League finals. 

“Jackson has had that in him all year…he’s so intelligent, and he learned this whole year how to get himself ready for this moment,” Radnor head coach Jamie Chadwin said. “[Haverford] is one of the best defensive teams you’re going to see, and it didn’t matter to him. He’s going to find a way to get the space he needed and be aggressive and put his best out there against their best.”

Hicke believed the space that allowed him to drive the lane so aggressively during his end-of-half run came from his play late in the first quarter. The junior scored seven points in the first frame, punctuated by a 3-pointer late in the quarter. 

“I hit the deep three to end the first quarter, and they started pushing up on me, so I could get by and get to the lane where I wanted, and I just attacked and finished two big plays,” Hicke said. 

Hicke headed into halftime with 14 points, and in the second half, the Raptors relied on their defense to put Haverford away. 

“The game plan was to stay out… we just knew we couldn’t give them space,” Chadwin said. “[Danny Rosenblum and Cooper Mueller] did it, and they knew that Charlie [Thornton] was back there and Jackson was rotating.”

“[Mueller] is non-stop, he has the most energy I’ve seen out of anyone,” Hicke said. “He’ll put his body on the line for the team, you never want to play against it, but you love having it on your team.”

Mueller and Rosenblum were responsible for keeping Haverford’s sharp-shooting junior Alex “Googie” Seidman and Scranton-bound senior Nick Colucci in check. And for the most part, they did just that, holding the pair to a combined 23 points; Colucci had 16, Seidman had 7.

“We knew they had some really good guys. Obviously, Googie Seidman and Colucci are really good players, so we tried to focus on them,” Mueller said. “We’re a talented defensive team, Danny Rosenblum and Pierce Justice have really good ball pressure, Jackson and Charlie Thornton they’re obviously really good shot blockers, so we try to feed off that.”

Mueller, Rosenblum, Thornton and Hicke’s defensive continuity comes from their familiarity with each other. The group are members of the “Radnor Rush,” which is what the juniors on Radnor’s team that have played together since as early as second grade call themselves.

Now the “Radnor Rush” and the rest of the Raptors are on the brink of fulfilling a dream: winning a league title at the high school level.

“We’ve dreamed of these days… middle school, seventh-grade tryouts we’re talking about our junior and senior year when we’re all playing together on the big stage, it’s a dream to be here finally,” said Mueller, who added 10 points.

On Monday, the Raptors will face regular-season champs Lower Merion for the Central League title. The Raptors dropped a contest against Lower Merion last month but were in the game until late, and they know what they need to do to get over the hump.

“We just need to keep playing the way we’ve been playing,” Chadwin said. “We used to have to gameplan like crazy for the other team, just because our talent level and our team was maybe not there; now I think it’s leveled out.”

And even though their prospective opponent will tout a Division I-bound big man in Demetrius Lilley, plus junior sharpshooter Sam Brown, the Raptors’ confidence is not wavering.

“This is what we’ve dreamed of since we were little kids, this is what we’ve worked for. I’m super excited for Monday,” Hicke said. “Now it’s time to go win the championship.”

By Quarter
Radnor:      20  |  11  |  11  |  11  ||  53
Haverford:  17  |   6   |   8   |   7   ||  38

Scoring
Radnor: Hicke 21, Mueller 10, Rosenblum 9, Thornton 7, Justice 6 

Haverford: Colucci 16, Newman 8, Seidman 7, Weiner 3, Wright 2, Reynolds 2