City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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CHESTER — Somewhere amid the chaos, Akhir Keys raised his arms, then ran with his head down before quickly disappearing into the celebration tsunami of entangled fans and players in front of the Chichester bench Tuesday night at Chester High.

Keys, the 6-foot-3 Chichester senior guard, became an instant Boothwyn legend when his corner baseline three-point shot with 12.7 seconds left spelled the winning difference in the Eagles’ 55-54 victory at Chester, breaking a decades-long strangle hold that the Clippers held over Chichester since 1987.

Yes, it was that long since Chichester had beaten Chester in a basketball game. More remarkably, it’s the first time Chichester ever beat Chester—at Chester. What’s more, Keys’ bucket gave the Eagles their first Del-Val League championship in 30 years, since the 1992-93 season and their first outright Del-Val title since anyone can remember.

Keys, who finished with a team-high 18 points, and the Chichester team were well aware of the history that they made.

The winning shot came off a designed play called a pistol keep, set up brilliantly by Chichester’s poised senior point guard Mazen Sayed, who drove the right of the lane, swung down the baseline and hooked a one-armed pass to the open Keys in the corner.  

Keys raised up and buried the shot.

He knew it would land as soon as it left his fingertips.

“Maz had trust in me and I knocked the shot down for the win,” Keys said. “We were Chi Avenue built, that’s our slogan. We knew the history. We knew it’s been since 1987 since a Chichester team beat Chester, and that long, long streak is finally over. I think the first game (this season) helped us with this game, even though we lost to them in overtime.

“I got tackled by my brother (Zaiyin Keys) after I made the shot. But it did get tense in the end.”

It did.

Chester got the ball in the front court and called timeout with 8.7 seconds left. When they came back out, Chester’s Terrence Cobb inbounded the ball to Kyree Womack, the game’s high scorer with 21, who drove the lane and had the shot blocked by Chichester’s Derrick Robertson. Cobb grabbed the ricochet and missed, and in the melee for the rebound, Chichester batted it out of bounds with .06 left.

After another timeout, with less than a second, Womack got another shot, a baseline jumper, which clanged off the rim and out, setting off the Chichester celebration in Chester’s packed gym.

“We definitely matured and we trust each other,” Sayed said. “That last play was designed, and I had big trust in Akhir. We never beat them. There was a lot of motivation for us to win this game. We never beat Chester here and we never gave up. We know the history here. I never felt the game was over. I missed some big free throws there in the end that I had to make for.

“Like I said, I had to trust my teammates, and we won.”

Winning has come naturally to Chichester coach Clyde Jones. He’s had a history of it. Winning the PIAA District 1 Class 3A championship in turning around Harriton, to winning the District 1 Class 4A and PIAA state championship in making Penn Wood a state powerhouse, to winning the District 12 Class 1A title at Girard College and bringing that program to a state final—and now at Chichester, a perennial doormat before he transformed the Eagles into a Del-Val champion for the first time in 30 years.

“I love these kids, I committed to them, and they committed to me,” Jones said. “I have four seniors that I rode the whole game. Some of them played other sports, and they left those other sports. It’s something I didn’t want them to do, but something they chose to do.

“They trusted the game plan and that was to keep their primary scorers below their average, and force them to run some offense. My kids stayed with the game plan the whole game. That last play was a dribble keep, and that was a great play by Maz, and Maz trusted Akhir.

“Maz read the play and kicked to the corner for three. I’m excited for these kids and Chichester. Teams come into this place and crack.”

In 1987, Jones was a junior at Penn State and had aspirations of coaching. He gave his players and staff the memory of a lifetime.

“And they earned it, and gave me the memory of a lifetime, which was built and earned on Chichester Avenue, which is our motto,” said Jones, who always carries a mesh bag of basketballs in his car trunk.  

Chichester (18-3, 7-1 Del-Val) entered the game No. 2 in the District 1 Class 5A rankings behind undefeated No. 1-rated Radnor. With the loss, Chester fell to 11-10 overall and in serious danger of not qualifying for the District 1 Class 6A playoffs—something the traditional power has failed to do beyond anyone’s memory.

The Clippers were No. 28 in Class 6A, which takes 24 teams in the district playoffs. They have one game left, against Chester Charter, but it’s far from certain that a win in that game will provide enough of a boost.

“We learned. You can’t come out and expect teams to lay down for you, those days are way over,” Chester coach Keith Taylor said. “I have to give Clyde and his staff a whole lot of respect, because they were preparing for this last year. Even through the summer, you could see them working, they were all business how they were getting ready for this moment with this team.

“Clyde did an excellent job, excellent job by him and his team. This was a great game. We had good looks in the end. They looked out of it, and they came back. We looked out of it, and we came back. We played too much one-on-one, and that hurt us. We got some great games though, from Breilynd White and Jerry Young, a football player, who made big shots for us.”

For everyone who was there, it won’t be a game forgotten anytime soon.

By Quarter
Chichester: 9   |  14  |  14  |  18  ||  55
Chester:    12  |  12  |  14  |  16  ||  54

Scoring
Chichester: Akhir Keys 18, Mazen Sayed 17, Zaiyin Keys 11, Vince Wildrick 6, Eyan Thomas 3.

Chester: Kyree Womack 21, Breilynd White 12, Jerry Young 10, Terrence Cobb 5, Vince Coleman 4, Dominic Toy 2.

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.