City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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RADNOR — It is a name his parents had heard years before Blaize Eldridge was born. It stuck in their minds. They wanted their second son to stand out. They bestowed a special name on him.

Eldridge has been special for Sun Valley. The Vanguards’ senior 6-foot-3 forward was again Wednesday night, with a shot that skipped through his hands and fell through the net for the game-winning point in Sun Valley’s 35-34 victory over Radnor in the District 1 Class 5A quarterfinals.

The No. 6 seed, Sun Valley (17-9) dethroned the defending District 1-5A champion Raptors to qualify for the PIAA state playoffs.

The Vanguards advance to face No. 2-seed Upper Dublin, at Upper Dublin at 1 p.m. on Saturday. Third-seed Radnor (19-5) will try to reach the state tournament through the playback portion.

Sun Valley would not be going anywhere if not for Eldridge’s drive through the middle of the lane and a rimmed double-doink of a basket that left his hands and fell through the net with 01.9 seconds left to play.

“I was just trying to make a play happen, and we obviously did,” Eldridge said. “We are so comfortable in that situation that it has been normal for us. The shot was not exactly my idea (laughs). It slipped out of my hands, and it went in. I meant to shoot it, but slipped, then bounced, and it bounced and just went in. I’ll take it.”

Radnor was ahead 34-33 on an Elijah Sellers’ backdoor layup with 18.4 seconds to play.

Sun Valley came back down, and Eldridge had an option to kick it to Noah Griffin, who had a game-high 13 points along with Sellers.

“Our play was to get it to Noah, and that was cut off, so I just wanted to go to the basket,” Eldridge said.

“It was not planned like that, but it went into the net,” Griffin said. “This was about effort and giving everything we can.”

The game was like a microcosm of Sun Valley’s season. The Vanguards — now 16-5 since their 1-4 start — started bad, recovered, went into another lull and came back to win. Sun Valley overcame a 5-minute, 37-second span without scoring a point, stuck on 30 from the last minute of the third quarter until Kaiden Robinson snapped the spell with 3:13 left in the game.

Sun Valley switched to a 1-3-1 halfcourt zone, which caused Radnor occasional trouble.

“I think this win speaks to the character and resilience of this team,” Vanguards coach Steve Maloney said. “We put that zone in after we started 1-4, and the kids bought into it, even with the athletic teams. We played Coatesville tough. This group stayed together. They could have caved when we went five minutes without scoring, but we didn’t.

“The Radnor kids are winners. We knew this was going to be a tough game. We talked about it all week. Those kids are defending state champions in lacrosse. We were coming into a packed gym, and we knew how athletic they are.”     

Sun Valley went into intermission clinging to an 18-17 lead, thanks to the Vanguards’ zone and Radnor shooting 8 of 24 in the first half, including a 2-for-13 second quarter.

Sun Valley’s first lead came on a Robinson driving layup with 2:10 left in the half, but it was the defense that stirred the Vanguards. Seven of their 18 points came off Radnor turnovers.

Radnor started well, getting out to an 8-0 lead before Robinson broke the freeze, scoring Sun Valley’s first points of the game 3:56 into the first quarter. The Vanguards scored five of their first seven points off Radnor turnovers.

This is the furthest Sun Valley has gone in the district playoffs since 2019, when it won the District 1 Class 5A title.

By Quarter

Sun Valley (17-9):  7  | 11  |  12  |  5 ||  35

Radnor (19-5):  12  | 5  |  7  | 10 ||  34

Scoring

SV: Noah Griffin 13, Blaize Eldridge 9, Kaiden Robinson 8, Aaron Freeman 5, Josh Yannonis 2.

Radnor: Elijah Sellers 13, Henry Pierce 9, Alex McFadden 5, Michael Savadove 4, Kessy Cox 3.

Joseph Santoliquito is a hall of fame, award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on Twitter here.

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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