City of Basketball Love

By Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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The Audenried girls basketball team has felt the weight of its Philadelphia Public League crown throughout this season.

When the Rockets knocked off Imhotep in last season’s championship game, they became the standard everyone else was shooting for — a burden carried by the Panthers for most of the last decade.

It was at its heaviest at halftime on Wednesday when the Rockets trailed Mastery North in the Public League semifinals. Just like every challenge The Pub has presented so far this season, coach Kevin Slaughter’s squad was up for it, rallying to get back to Saturday’s title game at noon at the Liacouras Center where Audenried will defend its title in a rematch with Imhotep.

“We were always hunting and now we’re the hunted,” Slaughter said. “People are hunting us.”

“It’s definitely a lot of pressure on me and the kids of completing the mission, but now that we went through that adversity (Wednesday) … I think all the pressure’s off of us now, and I think we’re going to come into the game loose on Saturday.”

Imhotep finds itself in familiar territory in its 11th straight trip to the championship game. The Panthers have seven titles, including two in a row before Audenried kept them from a threepeat last season.

Coach David Hargrove has guided the ship for the last eight seasons. Mastery North in 2017 and 2020 was the only other program to knock off Imhotep under his watch. His teams bounced back to avenge their title game losses in 2018 and 2021 and the Panthers have another opportunity to do the same Saturday.

“Sometimes winning, it takes a lot of maturity to keep winning and bouncing back takes a lot of grit and toughness and growth in your maturity,” Hargrove said. “We’ve seen both sides of it, and I think this team, as far as our coaching staff has done a wonderful job of just pouring into these kids and showing them how to become winners.”

“To me, it’s been fun.”

There are quite a few pieces back from both sides who played in last year’s title game, which Audenried won 56-48.

Last season’s Public League MVP Shayla Smith is a D1 recruit who does it all for the Rockets. Senior wing Aniyah “Rambo” Howard (5-8) was the championship game MVP last season. Junior guard Senaya Parker is a new addition who won the league title with Imhotep as a freshman. Sophomore wing Heaven Reese has played a bigger and bigger role, heightened by an injury to freshman 6-foot-2 forward Nasiaah Russell. Slaughter said she is a player who is “built for the moment.” 

Imhotep juniors Sabria Mann, Kayla Thompson and Anise Geiger (6-1) are the “foundation” for the Panthers with as many as seven others rotating in, including senior point guard Asia Taylor. It’s a deep lineup that presents some size Audenried can’t quite counter with Russell hurt. Hargrove has been impressed by the group's maturity on and off the court, currently boasting the highest team GPA any of his team's have had.

The two teams squared off late in the regular season in championship game preview. Audenried edged the Panthers 62-56 on the road Jan. 26.

“We had a couple moments where the game got away from us, but overall we showed that we’re definitely capable of beating them if we do a couple things better fundamentally.” 

“It gave us a lot of confidence.”

Slaughter has admired “the basketball factory” at Imhotep as a rival in the league during his tenure. He compared the Panthers to a blueblood like Duke or Kentucky that you know you’re going to get a terrific team year after year no matter who’s on the floor.

The Rockets head down to the Liacouras Center on Saturday with the goal of taking another step toward becoming that type of program themselves. No one besides Imhotep has gone back-to-back in the Public League since Prep Charter’s threepeat from 2011 to 2013.

“As good as we’ve been for two years, we haven’t reached the level yet that Imhotep’s reached the last 10 years,” Slaughter said.

“We’re trying to get to that level. We’re trying to run off three, four straight, where eventually we’ll have that reputation.”