City of Basketball Love

By David Comer
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When Bryn Athyn College women’s basketball coach Travis Ponton was hired just days before the start of the 2019-20 season, he inherited a team with only seven players on the roster and one that finished 3-21 the year before.

“When I took over, we barely had a team,” Ponton said.

What a difference five years make. This season, the Lions are 11-2 overall and 4-0 in the United East Conference. They also have 13 players on the roster.

“It’s taken a lot of hard work,” Ponton said. “And that hard work has continued.”

Bryn Athyn’s first season with a women’s basketball program was 2013-14. It was last season when the Lions won the program’s first-ever postseason game with a victory over Cedar Crest College in the conference quarterfinals. They then lost to Saint Elizabeth University in the conference semifinals to finish with a 17-8 record, but history had been made. Along the way, Bryn Athyn held opponents to 19.7% three-point shooting - which led not only Division III women’s basketball but also all NCAA levels for both men’s and women’s basketball.

This season, Ponton said, the goals are loftier.

“We have a mantra this season: ‘Climb the next mountain,’” Ponton said. “We made a lot of history last year, but every year we’re hungrier. We want to get to the championship game this year.”

Ponton has a wealth of experience coaching women’s basketball at the Division I level with stops at Mount St. Mary’s University, Southeastern Louisiana University, Charleston Southern University, Loyola University in New Orleans and Long Island University Brooklyn. He brought that knowledge with him to Bryn Athyn, which was founded in 1877 and is a private, coeducational, liberal arts college located in Bryn Athyn, Montgomery County — about 14 miles north of center city Philadelphia.

Ponton said that Bryn Athyn — with just over 300 students — is the smallest school in the NCAA.

Since he arrived at Bryn Athyn, his teams have increased their win total every year - from 6 to 9 to 13 to 17 wins. (There was no season in 2020-21 due to COVID-19.) This season, his sixth at the school, he may have his best team yet.

“We have a really good mix of kids,” he said. “Our depth has been our strength this year. We have kids that compete; kids that don’t take practices off.”

The Lions’ starting lineup includes three transfers from Northampton County Community College in seniors Alayna Day and Xion Spence and junior Yonique Reynolds. Day, Spence and Reynolds were part of NCCC’s 2022-23 team that reached the National Junior College Athletic Association national tournament. 

“We’ve done a great job with junior college recruiting,” Ponton said. “The kids know what it takes to be successful in college basketball.”

Alexa Osafo-Mensah, a junior from Charles Town, W.Va., is the team’s tallest starter at 5-foot-9. 

And the final starter, Zhymani Smith, is the star of the team. The 5-foot-6 senior guard from Hampton, Va., spent a season at Division I Florida A&M - all the way back in 2017-18. She then left college and eventually got in touch with Ponton, who had recruited her out of Menchville (Va.) High School several years earlier while he was an assistant at Charleston Southern, and told Ponton she wanted to play for him.

“You never know what’s going to happen down the road,” he said.

Smith arrived at Bryn Athyn for the 2022-23 season. And then she injured her shoulder during a preseason practice. The injury required surgery, and she missed the entire year. Her Bryn Athyn debut finally came in the second game of the 2023-24 season, when she scored 15 points in a win over Pratt Institute. Smith hasn’t stopped scoring since.

She averaged 19.0 points and 6.5 points per game as a junior and earned first-team all-conference honors. She also recorded the first triple-double in program history. 

This season, she is averaging 17.4 points and 6.5 rebounds per game.

“She has the ‘it’ factor,” Ponton said. “She’s a combo guard who makes things happen. She’s just very aggressive”

Ponton said that Smith’s story is one of the best in college basketball. The same could be said if Bryn Athyn, as the smallest school in the NCAA, can reach the Division III NCAA tournament for the first time in school history.

They have played exhibition games against Division I opponents Navy and UMBC this season.

“It’s a really cool thing we get an opportunity to do,” Ponton said.

And, most importantly, Ponton said, the team has been able to stay healthy. You can’t climb the next mountain if you’re not healthy.

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Rowe shining for York College

Downingtown East graduate Jayden Rowe, after transferring from Millersville University, has found a home at York College. The 6-foot-4 junior guard has started all 62 career games for the Spartans since he arrived before the 2022-23 season.

"He’s been awesome,” long-time York coach Matt Hunter said. “He’s been a lot of fun to coach. He’s obviously a very talented basketball player.”

Rowe has been a model of consistency, averaging 12.2 points as a freshman, 13.1 points as a sophomore and 12.5 points this season. He also has been a solid rebounder (3.8 / 5.1 / 3.9 rebounds per game) and is an excellent passer (3.2 / 3.1 / 3.0 assists per game). His overall field goal and three-point percentages have increased each season.

“He’s worked really hard,” Hunter said.

York is off to a 7-4 start that includes a win over then-22nd-ranked Stockton University and two overtime losses. League play starts this week with games against Alvernia University and Eastern University. 

The Spartans play an entertaining style of basketball with a 5-out positionless offense and a trapping defense. Rowe is often the team’s primary ballhandler on offense and at the top of the press on defense.

“He fits well into that system,” Hunter said.

The Spartans play two more regular-season games in the Philadelphia area this season - on Wednesday, January 29 at Widener University and on Saturday, February 1 at Eastern.

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Arcadia men working overtime

The Arcadia College men’s basketball team is coming off back-to-back overtime wins on the road - an 87-82 victory at Shenandoah University and a 79-76 win at Susquehanna University. After a 1-4 start, the Knights are now 5-6 as they begin league play this week at home against DeSales University on Wednesday. 

“I think the biggest difference is the guys are figuring out their roles,” Arcadia coach Adam Van Zelst said. “We knew it was going to take some time. We have a great group of guys. They’re coachable. They’re committed. They’re all in.”

In the win over Shenandoah, senior 6-foot guard Dominic Vazquez was the star with a career-high 30 points and six assists and was 12-of-20 from the field (including 5-of-11 from long range). The Archbishop Ryan graduate is third on the team in scoring this season at 10 points per game and has put together an excellent career for the Knights, playing in 88 career games - with 50 starts - and averaging 7.7 points, 2.6 assists and 2.5 rebounds per game. Van Zelst said that Vazquez battled some minor injuries early in the season but is now healthy.

“He’s battle-tested and ready,” Van Zelst said. “He’s really grown a lot since he got here.”

In the win over Susquehanna, freshman guard Jamison Lynam played 41 minutes and scored a game-high 20 points, including two free throws with four seconds left to seal the victory.

“He played his most complete game since he’s played in an Arcadia uniform,” Van Zelst said.

Winning in overtime is never easy, especially in consecutive games away from home.

“I was really proud of the guys,” Van Zelst said.

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Timko lands at Carnegie Mellon University

Methacton product Nicole Timko spent two years at Christopher Newman University in Newport News, Va., where she was injured her first season and a key contributor as a reserve her second season. Timko, a 5-foot-10 guard who graduated in 2022 as Methacton’s all-time leading scorer with 1,748 points, is now back in Pennsylvania playing for Carnegie Mellon University.

Timko, whose older brother Erik is the third leading scorer (12.3 points per game) for the University of Delaware, has played in every game off the bench for the 10-1 Tartans. She is averaging 19.9 minutes and 7.9 points per game this season - both team bests for non-starters.

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DeAngelo off to Australia

Vinny DeAngelo, a 2024 Swarthmore College graduate and a Sun Valley product, signed his first professional contract earlier this month to play for the Ulverstone Redhoppers in the North West Basketball Union in Australia. DeAngelo, a 6-foot-1 guard, finished his collegiate career as the school’s all-time leading scorer with 1,743 career points. He also was a Centennial Conference player of the year (2022-23), rookie of the year (2019-20) and three-time first-team all-conference selection (2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24). 

He will now play in Ulverstone, a town that, according to information online, is on the northern coast of Tasmania, Australia, and the largest town in Tasmania with an urban population of 11,613 as of 2021. Ulverstone, according to mapping information online, is 10,264 miles from DeAngelo’s hometown of Aston.

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Layups

Ursinus College senior and St. Joe’s Prep grad Trevor Wall was named the Centennial Conference men’s basketball player of the week on Tuesday after scoring 29 points and making the game-winning three-pointer with seven seconds left to lift the Bears to a 93-90 win over Elizabethtown College on Saturday. Wall, who leads the Centennial Conference in scoring at 23.3 points per game, has won the award three times this season. Wall now has 1,439 career points and is ninth on the school’s all-time men’s scoring list; he could pass Pete Smith (1,443), Mike McGarvey (1,460) and Jim Mobley (1,461) to move into sixth place in his next game. … Speaking of Ursinus, senior Chinwe Irondi is now third on the school’s all-time women’s scoring list with 1,547 career points. She trails only Lydia Konstanzer (1,624) and Ellen Cosgrove (1,878). … The Gwynedd Mercy University men’s basketball team puts its 10-0 record on the line Wednesday night when it starts Atlantic East Conference play at Marywood University.