City of Basketball Love

By Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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LANSDOWNE — After having its dominant run at the top of the Del-Val League cut short last winter, the Chester boys basketball team entered 2023-24 on a “Payback Tour”.

The first stop was Penn Wood High School on Thursday night.

Chester climbed out an early hole to come away with a 59-50 win to open league play.

“It’s time for our get-back,” senior Dante Atkinson said. “It’s get back time now. It’s payback time. We call it the Payback Tour. All of the rest of these league games, it’s time for our getback. Last year, we missed out. This year it’s go time.” 

Atkinson is in the driver's seat of the tour bus. 

He was around two District 1 championship teams in his first two years with the program and remembers sitting on the bench during the team’s run in 2021-22.

Last season was his first expanded role at the varsity level. He provided energy and defense for the Clippers as they went 12-10 overall and 5-3 in the Del-Val and missed the District 1 playoffs for the first time in five decades.

His mission is to guide Chester back to the top this season. A Dec. 7 loss to Math, Civics & Sciences is the lone blemish on the schedule thus far as Thursday marked the team’s sixth straight win.

“I got the biggest role this year,” Atkinson said. “I gotta play captain. I gotta pick everybody’s heads up. I gotta play that role, take the fall for everybody. I just gotta be there. … I’ve been waiting for it.”

The senior captain had 19 points in Thursday’s win, including 10 in the third quarter when the Clippers (8-1, 1-0 Del-Val) expanded a 25-22 halftime lead to 45-31 entering the fourth.Senior guard Andre Brown, who finished with 11 points, was also big in the frame, knocking down a pair of triples.

Atkinson added four more points in the final period to help shut the door.

“He’s our general on the floor,” Chester coach Keith Taylor said. “We need him to play under control, knock down shots when he has to, also feed the ball to our big man when he has to. He plays a big role for this team. That’s why he’s the captain of this team.”

“He was part of two district championship and by watching the guys that was ahead of him, the maturity in him, it shows a lot,” Taylor added. “From what we saw in him coming up to now and being the leader of the team, he improved a lot.”

The Clippers entered last season on a 43-game, five-year win streak against Del-Val League opponents. Penn Wood snapped that in the 2022-23 league opener and swept the season series. Chichester, which knocked off the Clippers for the first time since 1987 last year, finished as the league champions.

Penn Wood (5-6, 0-1 Del-Val) scored the first 13 points of Thursday’s game, jumping ahead 13-0 with three and a half minutes left in the first quarter. 

“It’s a big target on our back,” Atkinson said. “We feel it every game. Every game, the team thinks it’s a big win because they’re playing us. They gonna play their hardest every time.”

Chester was ready with a counterpunch. The Clippers tied the game 17-17 a minute and a half into the second quarter and took their first lead shortly after. 

They allowed just nine points over the next 11 and a half minutes to jump ahead and held Penn Wood to single digits once again in third despite 14 Patriots free throws.

That type of defensive effort is where Taylor sees this group being different from last year’s team though. 

“This team plays defense and they play hard defense,” Taylor said. “That’s a big difference. We play extra hard.”

Atkinson grew up in Chester well aware of the program’s storied tradition even if he didn’t always keep a close eye on it. He’s become more familiar with the basketball history at Chester and knows the responsibility he and his teammates have to return the program to where it’s supposed to be.

“I’m filling shoes now,” Atkinson said. “They big and I’m trying to fill ‘em.”

Chesterl 59, Penn Wood 50

By Quarter:

CHESTER: 7 | 18 | 20 |14 || 59

PENN WOOD: 15 | 7 | 9 | 19 || 50

Scoring: 

CHESTER:Dante Atkinson 19, Andre Brown 11, Dallas Thompson 8, Jalen Harris 6, Jaseir Thompson 5, Daron Harris 4, Calvin Williams 2, Vincent Coleman 2, Dominic Toy 2.

PENN WOOD: Amaury Womack 12, Chris Taylor 8, Donald Hairston 8, Lamaj Mapp 6, Kivale Clarke 6, Taj Cobbs 5, Nafi Davis 5.