City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADrobinson3)
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FORT WASHINGTON — In the span of about 85 feet, Ryan Mulroy felt all of it.

The doubt, the statements that Upper Dublin boys basketball was still at best a year away, the emotions of back-to-back first-round playoff losses — all of it and more raced through his head as he poked the ball free for a steal and made like a rocket down the floor. What’s been a special year for the Cardinals needed a special moment, so Mulroy delivered it Wednesday night by soaring high and throwing down a thunderous dunk to seal a state playoff bid.

Mulroy might’ve stayed on the court all night — the fans certainly wanted him to — but he and UD had a celebration to get to as the No. 2 Cardinals earned their way past No. 10 Penncrest 44-30 in the District 1 Class 5A quarterfinals.

“That was probably one of the first dunks I’ve had all year,” Mulroy said. “Last year I had more dunks, but to have that one going downhill at the end of the game to win a district playoff game here, with our crowd, it was just so cool.

“I was kind of lost after I did the dunk, like, ‘What just happened?’ Even all the people coming up after the game, it was crazy.”

Mulroy’s younger brother is in fifth grade and usually attends games with a host of his grade school pals, so the UD junior often has a solid supporter section. Wednesday, it seemed like just about every fifth grader from the four elementary schools in Upper Dublin School District wanted a high five from No. 13 after the game, almost all of them asking about the dunk or for another one like it.

Upper Dublin's Ryan Mulroy celebrates with fans Wednesday night after beating Penncrest in the District 1 Class 5A quarterfinals. (Photo: Andrew Robinson/CoBL)

After leading the way with 15 points, six coming in the fourth quarter, Mulroy couldn’t hide a smile when asked if that had been the longest walk back to a locker room he’d ever had. Considering how the walk back felt last year after a first-round loss ended his season, Mulroy was content to take his time.

“They’ve never seen that before,” Mulroy said. “Last year, I was so upset. We had such a great group of seniors, I felt bad for all those guys so that win was for them. No one really thought this was going to be our year, everyone kept saying ‘you’re still a year behind,’ but all these guys just bought in.” 

The victory secured Upper Dublin’s first state playoff bid since 2002, also the same year as the program’s last outright Suburban One League title before it matched the feat earlier this month. It also ran the Cardinal’s win streak to a program-record 14, a gauntlet that included two wins over Abington, a win over Plymouth Whitemarsh and the program’s first SOL tournament title.

Derrick Brooks inherited a program last year he knew was on the rise but still needed a little more to take that next step. The team’s main guys are all juniors or younger and are almost all exclusively basketball players, something that teams of the past couldn’t always claim.

While 2002 was a special year in Fort Washington, 2024 is well on its way to saying the same.

“It keeps getting better,” Brooks said. “This is the upper echelon of outcomes we thought were possible. It’s a credit to these kids. They go out on the floor, they’re not afraid and they execute.”

Chris Kohlbrenner will graduate as one of Upper Dublin’s most decorated athletes, a 12-time varsity letter winner in four years across three sports with multiple district titles and a football career at West Chester University awaiting him. He wasn’t in the gym this fall — a little busy playing wideout and safety on Fridays — but as soon as football ended and he got back in the gym, the senior felt it.

He missed the SOL tournament title game with an ankle injury, but Kohlbrenner was there in force Wednesday with nine points and was a catalyst alongside Kobe Bazemore at the top of an aggressive UD defense that was determined not to let Penncrest run any of its sets cleanly.

“These guys work year-round, they’ve all put in a great amount of effort and focus into becoming the best team we can be,” Kohlbrenner said. “I saw all these guys get so much better, they have a chip on their shoulder. The way we went out last year, everyone felt it, it hurt and these guys just want it really bad.”

Beating a Mike Doyle-coached team in late February is usually a good indicator something is going well for a program. Both Mulroy and Kohlbrenner said a key piece of practice this week was stressing the expectation of a low score and not feeling flustered if they weren’t scoring with regularity.

“They’re good,” Brooks said. “We knew they were going to try and slow the game down, we wanted to try and speed it up. They run some really good halfcourt sets, we had to try and blow it up as much as we could. They did a great job defensively on us.”

Mikey Mita led Penncrest with eight, Patrick Garrison chipping in with seven. The Lions didn’t score much, but they didn’t give up much either and forced the Cardinals to go to other means of producing offense.

Getting one combined point from Brady Fogle and Idris Rines likely wouldn’t have meant an Upper Dublin win not too long ago. At this point of the season, it’s a different team.

“When we’re not having our ‘A’ or ‘B’ game, we’re still figuring out ways to win,” Kohlbrenner said. “When we’re getting stops on defense, even if we’re not making a lot of shots, it still takes a lot of pressure off us.”

That was true in the third quarter, which felt like it was played in mud. A couple key contributions by UD’s bench kept the Cardinals in front, but even then they saw their lead cut to three on the first possession of the fourth quarter.

A short jumper by Noah Cohen, two free throws by Kohlbrenner and a daring layup by Bazemore off a Rines dish came in response. Rines found Mulroy for a reverse lay-in with 1:27 left, then 35 seconds later Mulroy came around the blindside and poked the ball free.

“This has been building for years, you have a lot of basketball kids who have really worked hard,” Brooks said. “As that grows and grows, it just builds. We had a young group coming in this year that had to learn how to play, and three months ago there’s no way we win this game.

“Our guys just believe, they believe that they’re getting better and that they’re good.” 

By Quarter

Upper Dublin:  9 | 13 | 8 | 14 || 44

Penncrest: 8 | 6 | 10 | 9 || 33

Scoring

Upper Dublin: Ryan Mulroy 15, Chris Kohlbrenner 9, Kobe Bazemore 8, Noah Cohen 8, James Castronuovo 3, Brady Fogle 1

Penncrest: Mikey Mita 8, Patrick Garrison 7, Connor Cahill 6, Theo Glade 5, Will Stanton 3, Kevin Gamlin 2, Liam Doyle 2

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District 1 5A Boys

Quarterfinals (Wed., Feb. 21)
1) Unionville 72, 8) Upper Moreland 63
4) Phoenixville 71, 5) Pottstown 61
2) Upper Dublin 44, 10) Penncrest 33
6) Sun Valley 35, 3) Radnor 34

Semifinals (Sat., Feb. 24)
1) Unionville vs. 4) Phoenixville
2) Upper Dublin vs. 6) Sun Valley