City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)

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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 2022-23 season preview coverage. The complete list of schools previewed thus far can be found here.)

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The Devon Prep basketball team will walk by it every day to practice. It’s unavoidable. The reminders come behind a glass-enclosed trophy case outside their gym that contains a huge Hershey bar coupled with the long wood board, outlined in black with gold letters etched across the base proclaiming the Tide as the 2022 PIAA 3A boys’ basketball state champions.

It’s a powerful tangible artifact to a season in which Devon Prep didn’t win any other titles, except the most important one. The Tide were knocked out of the Catholic League playoffs, did not win the District 12 championship before going on a tremendous run during the most crucial time of the year to capture the title that matters — the only basketball state championship trophy that currently sits in the Devon Prep trophy case.

Now comes the hard part: Doing it again.

This year, coach Jason Fisher will be entering his 10th season as head coach, and he carries the same attitude as he did last year.

“It’s not like you sit here and our goal is to win the state tournament; our goal is to get better each day,” Fisher said. “That hasn’t changed. We wound up making enough strides to win a state championship (last year). Did we do more than we expected? You never expect to win a state championship. We thought we would do better than the year before.”

Here’s the reality. The Philadelphia Catholic League is loaded with talented teams that the Tide could be the 10th best in the league. It’s a collection of teams where iron sharpens iron. Devon Prep just may have a smaller iron than the others. The Tide lost to West Catholic in the Catholic League quarterfinals and wound up coming back to beat the Burrs in the state quarterfinals.

“It’s crazy,” Fisher said. “You’re a state champion and we’re about in the middle of the crowd in the Catholic League. I wonder if there are teams in the Catholic League that even know we’re state champions (laughs). We’re looking forward to this year. We have a good mix of players that have experience and younger guys.

“It will be different from last year, that’s for sure. I don’t know exactly where our strength is going to be. Experience I would say is a strength. We have guys who have gone through the Catholic League. A concern is also playing in the Catholic League, getting beat up night after night and the injuries that come with it. We’re the smallest school in the Catholic League and we’re not particularly deep, so we’ll stress fundamentals, being fundamentally sound, being able to move the ball, and the extra pass.

“Honestly, we have the same expectations as last year, and that’s to get better every day. That’s the only thing we can control is getting better.”

In 2022, Devon Prep finished 19-7 overall and 7-6 in the Catholic League as a No. 7 seed. Fisher’s team finished a game short of the Palestra with a loss to West Catholic in the PCL quarterfinals, eventually getting revenge on the Burrs on the way to the Class 3A title.

The Tide returns three starters, led by 6-foot-4 senior forward Jacen Holloway (13.7 ppg, 5.8 rpg), who is going to West Point, 6-4 senior forward Lucas Orchard (14.9 ppg, 3.6 apg, 4.7 rpg), who has an offer from Monmouth and West Point, and 5-9 junior guard Ty Mishock (5.2 ppg, 3.5 apg).

Holloway, Orchard and Mishock will be supported by 5-11 senior guard Tyler Scarpulla, 6-7 senior forward Gavin D’Iorio, 6-6 junior forward Ben Costello, 6-2 junior guard Jabar Oakes, and sophomores Zane Conlon, a 6-4 forward, and Shane Doyle, a 6-2 guard.

The Tide want to fill that trophy case up this year.

They’ll need to replace the leadership and scoring of graduates Allan Cieslak (11.5 ppg) and IV Pettit (15.3 ppg, 6.8 rpg), who is now at Phelps School.

Their goals are trips to the Palestra, which would mean a deep run in the Catholic League playoffs, and a return trip to Hershey for the state championship.

There was progressive growth last season.

“We knew we were capable of winning a state title, but we had lost to West Catholic two times prior, and we knew we would have to face them again down the road (in the state tournament),” Orchard recalled. “We knew we would have to play a great game to beat them. Last year, we beat the teams that we were supposed to beat and had problems with the Neumann-Gorettis and teams like that. The next step for us this year is to beat those teams. The goal for us is to get to the Palestra this year.

“What’s going to get us there is I love how everyone shares the ball on this team. If Jay (Holloway)  isn’t scoring the ball, someone will step up. We all share the ball, and we can all score. Being undersized will be tough. That’s a big concern. I think we could do what we did last year. We lost two great players, Allan and IV. That’s going to hurt, but we have three starters back and we have some younger people ready to step up. Everyone is bought in.

“I like the pressure. Everyone knows when they play Devon Prep it’s not going to be an easy game.”

Holloway likes Devon Prep’s chemistry, too. He also embraces the pressure that accompanies winning.

“I like how our chemistry is unmatched; we’re all familiar with how we play,” he said. “With the experience we have and the younger guys we have back, we’re used to it. There is definitely going to be pressure. We shocked everyone last year. I don’t think we’ll sneak up on anyone this year. Last year was super fun and we spent a lot of time with each other and got to know each other better. We know we can rely on one another. But we like the pressure. I like the pressure. I think it’s entertaining.

“I think it’s fair to say we want another state championship, but we want to go to the Palestra first. We didn’t win a Catholic League title, we didn’t win the district title, but we did win the most important title. We want a little more this year.”

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Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on Twitter here .