City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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Adam “Budd” Clark and Zion Stanford knew each other growing up in West Philadelphia.

They were often on opposite sides of little league basketball championships being coached by their fathers Chuck Stanford and Bernard Clark.

“We used to go against each other, clash a little bit,” Stanford said. “Won some chips against each other, lost some chips against each other then we formed as one team.”

The two played AAU together in eighth grade before going their separate ways again as freshmen in high school. Stanford and Clark, who spent his freshman year at Boys’ Latin, reunited three years ago at West Catholic, where the plan was to help coach Miguel Bocachica make history with the program.

West Catholic's players and coaches celebrate winning the 2023 PIAA 3A boys' basketball championship. (Photo: Mark Jordan/CoBL)

Stanford, a Temple commit, and Clark accomplished their mission Saturday as they combined for 62 points in the PIAA 3A championship, downing Deer Lakes, 83-55, for the first state championship in West Catholic history.

“It’s amazing for us to be West Catholic and for our school to be in West Philly, for those kids to be West Philly kids and for them to have so much history together,” Bocachica said.

“They’ve shared a lot of just wonderful, wonderful moments and they’re great kids and they work extremely hard and I’m tough on them and they just take it. I’m glad we could have this moment, so the rest of the kids could see when you work hard this is what you get.”

West Catholic (20-10) fell into an early 8-1 hole on Saturday as Billy Schaeffer (21 points) had the hot hand for Deer Lakes (21-9). The Burrs still trailed 15-11 late in the second quarter before a triple by Micah Waters cut the deficit to one.

Stanford gave West Catholic its first lead by going coast-to-coast for a bucket early in the second quarter. The Waters triple started a 17-2 run that gave the Burrs a 32-17 lead with 2:14 left in the half on a bucket by Clark, who had 10 points in the second. 

They outscored Deer Lakes 24-4 in the second quarter for a 38-19 halftime lead, ending the half with an alley oop from Clark to Stanford.

“Me and Zion have great chemistry, so I know if I get in the lane and he’s backside, I know he’s gonna cut,” Clark said. “I just throw it up and I know he’s gonna go get it. … We do it in practice all the time. We do it in the season. I just knew it was gonna be there.”

“I don’t think he saw me or not, at this point I think it’s just like muscle memory,” Stanford said. “He threw it up, and I slammed it down.”

Clark scored a game-high 32 points, while Stanford added another 30, becoming the first Philadelphia Catholic League players to go for 30 apiece in a state title game.

“It’s definitely good to know you played good in your last game, had one of your best games of the season in your last game,” Stanford said. “It’s definitely great to have a good game with your teammate, also your dynamic duo. It’s definitely fun. I feel like we went out with a bang.”

As a pair, Clark and Stanford accomplished quite a bit during their West Catholic careers. 

The two-time first team All-PCL selections are the only two 1,000-point scorers to ever be on the same team with the Burrs. They’re the first players in program history to earn consecutive first team all-league selections.

“It was great to play with a player like him,” said Clark, who recently reopened his college recruitment. “He’s probably the best player I ever played with, so it just feels good getting to do it with who I did it with. Love my guys.”

Zion Stanford (above, left), committed to Temple, had 30 points in his final high school game. (Photo: Mark Jordan/CoBL)

The “dynamic duo” led West Catholic to back-to-back trips to the Palestra for the Catholic league semifinals, falling just short of a PCL title appearance with an overtime loss to Neumann-Goretti this season. 

Their response was bringing home the District 12-3A championship for the program’s first city title since 1953 and a run to a state championship at a program that hadn’t been to the semifinals before this season.

Along with fellow seniors Amyr Walker and MJ Branker, they made history like they set out to.

“It’s definitely good to have the feeling that you can come back to your school years later and know that you made history and know that banner that’s hanging up is what I did, or what we did as a unit,” Stanford said.

“We couldn’t get the PCL championship, but we had two other championships to go get, and we got ‘em,” Clark said. “We had a lot of history.”

Bocachica made sure to note the team’s success goes far beyond the contributions of just Clark and Stanford to guys like Walker, who had a breakout senior campaign, and Branker. He added younger players like Waters and Tariq Jennings, who stepped up during the postseason, all the way to the reserves who helped prepare the team for each game.

There’s no denying, however, that his senior duo was a special one. And they went out in a special way.

“That was beautiful,” Bocachica said. “At some point, I’ll go back and watch all the games this season as a spectator and I know I’ll appreciate those guys a lot more. As a coach I’m really nitpicking and the dunks, the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ don’t really get to me. For me, it’s like that’s what you’re supposed to do. But those guys have been wonderful and they helped me completely shift the culture here at West Catholic.”

By Quarter
West Catholic: 14  |  24  |  28  |  17  ||  83
Deer Lakes:     15  |   4   |  20  |  16  ||  55

Shooting
West Catholic: 33-54 FG (2-9 3PT), 15-24 FT
Deer Lakes: 20-46 FG (9-21 3PT), 6-11 FT

Scoring

West Catholic: Budd Clark 32, Zion Stanford 30, Micah Waters Jr. 5, MJ Branker 4, Kingston Wheatley 3, Mike Singleton 3, Amyr Walker 2, Tariq Jennings 2, Jah Tyler 2

Deer Lakes: Billy Schaeffer 21, Bryce Robson 20, Wayne Love 8, Nate Litrun 2, Nate Buechel 2, Aiden Fletcher 2