City of Basketball Love

Matthew Ryan (@matthewryan02)
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WEST CHESTER — To set a program record for wins in a season, you need to have a well-rounded team.

And while senior Rylee Derr deservingly gets a lot of the attention, it’s her strong play accompanied by her teammates’ performances that led Kutztown to break the previous mark of 21 victories set back in 1999-00.

“It was great,” Kutztown head coach Janet Malouf said of setting the new wins record. “It’s a tribute to the kids we have on our team. […] We still got a couple more games to hopefully build upon that little record that we have, but I’m very proud of our kids.”

The win that pushed the Golden Bears over the threshold came on Wednesday night, a 75-51 rout over West Chester on the road. It was a dominant performance throughout by Kutztown, ranked No. 24 in the latest national coaches’ poll and No. 2 in the region, as the Golden Bears buried seven 3s in the first quarter to get out to a 25-14 lead and never looked back.

The contest was symbolic of the season the Golden Bears have been having: solid contributions all around with seven players scoring at least seven points, and Derr leading the way with a game-high 15. Joining Derr in double figures on Wednesday was Zara Zerman (13 points), Abby Hearn (11) and Alexis Smith (10). Derr and Zerman led the team with five assists apiece and Casey Remolde grabbed a game-high nine rebounds to go along with her eight points.

“I think everyone on the team contributes in some way, whether it be points, rebounds, assists, just energy,” Derr said. “I feel like we mesh really well and we play really well together. I feel like every game we’re just getting better and we’re excited for the rest of the season.”

In the pool of solid players for the Golden Bears, Derr is clearly the top dog. The 5-foot-10 guard is in her fifth year at Kutztown, playing her fourth season due to the pandemic canceling the D-II campaign a year ago.

Coming from Warwick High School where she is the all-time leading scorer, Derr has done nothing but impress since stepping on campus. She’s a three-time All-PSAC East team member and will certainly earn a fourth after this season. She’s the all-time leading scorer in Kutztown history, and was just named Lehigh Valley Small College Basketball Pete Nevins Player of the Year.

After the year break, Derr has returned to average 14.0 points on 42.1/40.2/79.8 shooting splits while grabbing 6.7 rebounds and adding 1.8 assists and 1.1 steals.

The season before Derr arrived at Kutztown, the Golden Bears finished with just a 13-18 record and were two games below .500 in conference play. But since she arrived along with the rest of her class, which is no longer at Kutztown besides Smith, the program is yet to experience a losing season.

While a big part of that improvement is Derr, who is arguably one of the best players in Kutztown history, the supporting cast for the Golden Bears has only gotten stronger over time.

“We’ve always had decent division two players and solid players and they do their job,” the 27th-year head coach at Kutztown said, “but right now we have a lot of threats who are capable of scoring, and that really matters because […] if somebody tries to shut down Rylee you have somebody else who can step up and score.

“We have a lot of good pieces and a lot of good players who could contribute to scoring for us and that’s why I think we’re a lot better now than we were when Rylee first got here.”

Trailing Derr in the scoring department is a well-rounded attack from Remolde (10.8 points per game), Hearn (9.6), Naia Pulliam (7.8) and Smtih (7.2).

The all-around play for Kutztown (22-5, 15-3 PSAC East) has it in unexplored territory in terms of wins, and there’s still some time before the postseason. The Golden Bears close out the regular season with matchups against Mansfield (7-17, 6-14), Bloomsburg (18-8, 15-4) and Shippensburg (15-10, 11-8) before heading into the PSAC Tournament where they will likely have a first-round bye.

On the other side, the loss dropped West Chesters’ record to 7-17 overall and 5-13 in the conference. With just three games to go, the Golden Rams sit at eighth place in the PSAC East but are only one game behind Mansfield and Millersville (7-18, 6-14), sixth and seventh in the conference, respectively. West Chester split its matchups against Mansfield and still faces Millersville one more time after winning the first matchup.

Throughout the season, the Golden Bears have been taking things one game at a time. It’s gotten them a mark no other Kutztown team has reached, and even though the playoffs are on the horizon, nothing has changed.

“If we take it one at a time […] then when we look back at the end of the year hopefully we’ll have accomplished all these other lofty goals that we have set,” Malouf said. “But for right now, it’s just what’s the next game up.”

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West Chester men clinch PSAC Tournament spot

Led by a dominant first half, West Chester topped Kutztown, 104-77, on Wednesday night to clinch a spot in the PSAC Tournament with three games to go. The win brings the Golden Rams to 15-9 overall and 9-9 in the PSAC East, putting them at fourth place in the division. Robert Smith led the charge for WCU, scoring 18 points with 16 of those coming in the first frame.

Although the Golden Rams have clinched a postseason spot, there are still rewards up for grabs. Of the six teams from each division that make the tournament, the top two get a first-round bye and three and four have a home game in the first round. Next up for West Chester is a senior matchup against Lock Haven (11-12, 8-11) on Feb. 19. The Bald Eagles sit just one game behind the Golden Rams for the final home-court spot.