City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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For 16 minutes, there was a chance that Radnor’s momentum might finally come to an end in the Central League semifinals, Springfield (Delco.) hitting some big shots to hang around in a raucous Radnor gym, going into the half down only seven.

But it was false hope for the Cougars, who became the latest victim to a Raptors squad that’s been as good as advertised all season long. Jackson Hicke and Co. put together a dominant third quarter to make it clear there would be no upset bid, pulling away for a 65-34 win on Saturday afternoon.

“They are a machine,” said Kevin McCormick, who’s been the Cougars’ head coach since 1994. “They’re definitely in the conversation [for best Central League teams during my tenure], and they should be proud of it, they’ve stuck together and they’ve got good things ahead of them.”

Radnor, now 23-0, heads back to the Central League championship game, where it will face Lower Merion at 7:45 PM on Monday at Harriton in the game it was hoping to see all year long. 

The Aces dispatched the Raptors in last year’s Central League title game, a loss that’s helped keep Radnor’s fire burning the 12 months since, along with a defeat in the District 1 5A title game to Chester. They can’t get revenge on the Clippers — Chester’s now in the 6A classification — so this is their best shot. 

Radnor already beat Lower Merion once this season, riding a strong third quarter to a 64-41 win at LM in January, but that one won’t matter at all if they can’t get it done Monday night at Harriton.

“I think we’re hungrier, I think we know it’s our last chance, really,” Hicke said. “Last year we went into a mindset where, it’s a must-win game, obviously, but I think we knew we had one more year left. 

“We don’t, this time,” he added. “We’re pumped up, we’re excited, we’re ready, we’re locked in, it should be a good one. We want it, we want it bad.”

A year ago, the Raptors were all getting their first taste of postseason experience, the most talented group to come through the Main Line school in decades learning how to play under pressure and expectations, against programs that have been there time and time again. This year, with four of five starters back from a year ago, and with only upperclassmen in the rotation, there haven’t been many signs of weakness thus far as they’ve kept the 0 in the loss column, putting together a season that has the potential to go down as one of the best suburban boys teams in recent memory.

That starts with winning on Monday night, beating a Lower Merion squad that has been the class of the Central since Kobe Bryant donned an Aces uniform in the early 1990s. Unlike last year, Radnor’s not intimidated by Lower Merion, knowing they’re plenty good enough to get it done.

“I think we’re a lot more cohesive this year and confident about how we’re playing,” senior point guard Danny Rosenblum said. “I think our defensive intensity has been awesome this year, so I think definitely [we’re] going in more confident, especially after the season we just had.”

Hicke, the Princeton-bound wing and recent 1,000-point scorer, was terrific all the way through on Saturday, putting together a 19-point, 13-rebound, five-steal, five-assist performance, the 6-foot-5 senior adding a block for good measure. Whenever Radnor needed a stop, he would come up with a steal; when they needed a bucket, he was grabbing offensive boards or cutting to the hoop, if not getting there off the bounce.

While Hicke stuffed the stat sheet and made play after play, several of his teammates had significant contributions, typical for this group. 

Senior wing Cooper Mueller, also bound for Princeton for lacrosse, had 12 points, three rebounds and three steals; Charlie Thornton, the uncommitted senior wing, had 10 points and three assists; the Rochester-bound Rosenblum added nine points and his typically strong on-ball presence, even if he didn’t have the assists numbers to necessarily show for it. Off the bench, Michael Savadove added four points and five boards, Jackson Gaffney seven points and three boards. 

The Cougars made it fun early, junior guard Jake Adams hitting a trio of first-half triples while junior forward Colin Treude hit a number of tough buckets in the lane, scoring 11 of his 15 in the first half. A group that had lost to Radnor by nearly 30 a couple weeks back without point guard Mike Hoey was back and healthy and played confident with its season on the line.

“I think we knew we were playing a different Springfield team and we’d have to find a couple of tweaks and (Adams) for them stepped up and hit some 3s early, that was big, it kept us a little bit off-balance,” Chadwin said. “So credit to these guys for just getting so focused and upping the concentration level.”

Adams’ second triple gave Springfield a 14-12 lead early in the second quarter; his third pulled them within 26-21 before Radnor scored the last bucket going into the break.

As it turned out, that was the beginning of a 20-0 run spanning the half. Rosenblum and Hicke hit back-to-back 3s off Thornton assists to push the lead to 34-21, and a Springfield timeout did nothing to stem the tide. With Radnor picking up 10 steals in the game, the Raptors were too easily getting in transition, too easily running their offense, getting every look they wanted, from backdoor cuts for open layups to ball movement for wide-open 3s, or even a Mueller transition dunk.

“Danny hit a big one to start, to get us going, and then Charlie found me,” Hicke said. “Puts us up 13 and they couldn’t be as methodical as they wanted to as they were at a lack of time down that many points, so we got them to play our game, and we just kept running and running and increasing the lead. 

“Credit to Danny, that one really got us out of our slump, we didn’t shoot well in the first half, to get us going, and we didn’t look back.”

By Quarter
Springfield:  9   |  12  |   4   |   9   ||  34
Radnor       10  |  18  |  20  |  17  ||  65

Shooting
Springfield: 13-37 FG (5-17 3PT), 3-7 FT
Radnor: 25-45 FG (4-11 3PT), 11-16 FT

Scoring
Springfield: Colin Treude 15, Jake Adams 11, Mike Joey 5, Ryan Whitaker 2, Mike O’Donnell 1

Radnor: Jackson Hicke 19, Cooper Mueller 12, Charlie Thornton 10, Danny Rosenblum 9, Jackson Gaffney 7, Michael Savadove 4, Nick Monty 2, Henry Pierce 2

~~~

Lower Merion holds off Upper Darby to set up Radnor rematch

The Aces faced a strong challenge from a very good Upper Darby squad, but the senior duo of Sam Brown and Sam Wright were just too much, leading the way to a 61-52 win in the second semifinal.

The Penn-bound Brown (20) and his classmate Wright combined for 38 points, getting a few buckets each from from Teddy Pendergrass III (7), Jordan Meekins (6) and Justin Poles (6) to hold off a potent Royals attack led by seniors Yassir Joyner and Nadir Myers, who had 18 apiece.

“We had a lot of respect for Upper Darby and they’re a very electric team and you saw what they could do in a very dynamic performance against Harriton,” Lower Merion coach Gregg Downer said, “so we had a good amount of ball control in the second half, a good amount of four corners and we were really able to keep that working margin. 

“There were a few lead changes in the first quarter, but outside of that, I think the ball control and some intellectual play by the Aces was enough to get us through.”

Lower Merion led by one after one quarter and five (31-26) at halftime, growing the advantage to eight (47-39) after three quarters and keeping the deficit right around there through the finish, Wright making eight foul shots in the fourth quarter to help seal the win.

That earns the Aces a rematch with the Raptors, the two programs developing an intense rivalry over the last couple years, the two Main Line schools separated by less than 10 miles suddenly equals on the court for the first time in anybody’s memory. Lower Merion’s the underdog going into the championships, a strange place for the Aces to be, but they’ve got decades of built-in experience going for them in how to manage big situations.

“Possibly the best Radnor team in the history of the school and the undefeated record kind of justifies that,” Downer said. “They’re really, really good. Probably one of the better Central League teams in the past 10 years: they’re solid, they play together, they don’t appear to have any major weaknesses, they’re on a mission.

“You’ve gotta really play sharp and you’ve gotta really have a good 32-minute plan,” he continued. “I believe we were up one at halftime in the first go-around and did not perform well in the second half. [...] They’re definitely the real deal.”

By Quarter
Lower Merion: 18  |  13  |  16  |  14  ||  61
Upper Darby:  17  |   9   |  13  |  13  ||  52

Scoring
Lower Merion: Sam Brown 20, Sam Wright 18, Teddy Pendergrass III 7, Justin Poles 6, Jordan Meekins 6, Owen McCabe 3, John Mobley 1

Upper Darby: Yassir Joyner 18, Nadir Myers 18, Niymire Brown 11, Khysir Slaughter 3, Shaun Cain 2