City of Basketball Love

By Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
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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 2023-24 season preview coverage. The complete list of schools previewed thus far can be found here.)

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Timing is everything.

High school sports are inherently cyclical, a program spends a few years building up, hits a high point then inevitably has to do it all over again. Plymouth Whitemarsh’s girls’ basketball program has been able to sustain its most recent build thanks to a well-timed series of re-sets that kept coming at just the right point in the cycle.

Now, a young Colonials group is starting relatively fresh this season, with an eye on a future that looks a lot like the recent past.

“We almost have to constantly remind ourselves ‘what do these kids not know?’” Colonials coach Dan Dougherty said. “We keep telling them, we’re going to be patient but we also can’t keep fixing the same thing every day, you have to remember it the next day and that’s how you get better.

“It’s a rebuild, but it’s going to be a competitive rebuild.”

It’s not a total restart, however. Sure, Kenna Winland and AJ Avery weren’t part of the Colonials’ state title team two seasons ago — the high point of the last cycle — but they did have the opportunity to play a season with a few key members of that team.

With two sophomores inheriting the roles of veterans and leaders, it speaks to the otherwise relative lack of basketball experience the Colonials are working with. It also says a lot about Winland and Avery, who were both well-aware this was the mantle being passed to them and spent the summer preparing for it.

“I think we both knew to, kind of, take notes on the older girls,” Winland said. “One thing we’ve really tried to keep saying to everyone is it’s ok to mess up or make mistakes, we’ve all done it a million times. The important thing is that we don’t take any steps back and learn from it when we do.”

Avery, who started all of last season, agreed it’s a little jarring to be looked at as a veteran player despite being a sophomore.

“Learning from our experiences last year, being led by four seniors, we talked about things we liked, things we didn’t like and how we could adapt all of that,” Avery said. “One of the big things for me was just preparing. I know for the both of us, there’s an increase in shots taken, an increase in minutes. You have to prepare over the summer and prepare again now that we’ve started practicing.”

Back when the PIAA only had four basketball classifications and when District 1 took 32 teams to the playoffs, a young PW team slipped into the last spot and gave top-seeded Cheltenham a good run before bowing out. That was the genesis for the last cycle.

Alynna Williams and her class came in and set the path that Taylor O’Brien and Lauren Fortescue ventured even further down. Anna McTamney and Gabby Cooper would form the bridge from that group to Kaitlyn Flanagan, Jordyn Thomas and Lainey Allen, the nucleus of the eventual district and state champions.

Abby Sharpe and Erin Daley would come a year later, rounding out the championship roster and they in turn linking Winland and Avery to the closure of one cycle and the onset of the next one.

“This is my 12th year as head coach and I’m looking at this as our fourth rebuild,” Dougherty said. “I talked with them a little bit about how life is all about timing. If they came in two years earlier, they probably don’t get a shot at varsity until their 11th grade year. It’s an interesting thing to go through, TJ (DeLucia) having gone through it all 12 years with me, I think we’re prepared for it.”

That lineage includes some outstanding players who have their names hung on banners on the wall in Gym West, but it wasn’t just scoring that got them there. Winland and Avery are well-aware where everything starts for the Colonials this winter and they want to follow the example they were given.

“One thing that clicked for me was Erin, not only in the way she carried herself but anytime I made a mistake, she was there for me,” Winland said. “That’s sparked me to do the same thing for our younger girls or newer girls because that was a big reason why I had so much confidence last year and not breaking down.”

“Watching the way our other three seniors carried themselves, I just tried to observe them and follow their footsteps,” Avery said. “The movements Abby would do when she pulled up for a shot, I worked to mimic that and the way they all knew the plays and their movements, I worked on that all offseason.”

Avery and Winland won’t go it alone. Sophomore Joslyn Perez played a role off the bench last season and contributed plenty to PW softball’s run into the state quarterfinals last spring, so the coaches see her in the same vein as Winland and Avery in terms of being a team leader.

Joslyn’s older sister Marissa Perez, an East Stroudsburg recruit in softball, is also playing basketball this winter. Add in a few more multi-sport athletes and a couple freshmen and that’s the foundation of what the Colonials hope starts off the next cycle.

Dougherty listed junior Taylor Williams, a track athlete, as someone he’s eager to see get a first crack at varsity minutes. Bailey Riley, Eliza Meersman and Brooke Peduzzi, all volleyball players, Gracie Kerns from field hockey and Olivia Patete from soccer make up the group of freshmen who could contend for playing time.

This group has athleticism and it has some big game experience, albeit in different sports. What it lacks is basketball experience and that’s where the work has started.

“Basketball is a special animal, fans are five feet from you, it’s enclosed, it’s loud,” Dougherty said. “Kenna, Jos and AJ all got that experience last year. These kids all embrace it, they want to do well and want to be coached.”

PW, on top of winning the last two SOL tournament titles, has also won four straight outright SOL division crowns. Winland and Avery said they want to compete for the Liberty championship again, wanting their team to have something to strive for going into the season.

With Abington and Upper Dublin both returning a fair amount of experience, the top of the Liberty table certainly figures to be competitive. While Dougherty appreciated his young leaders’ enthusiasm, he also noted the difficulty of trying to keep up the reign at the head of the table.

Dougherty’s aim is to get the Colonials into the district tournament and at least give whoever they face in that first game a scare. 

“The biggest thing is just patience,” Avery said. “The coaches understand patience is going to be needed for this season. This is a long run, we’re going to be in this together.”