City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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It’s playoff time in District 1. 

The various leagues that make up the four suburban Philadelphia counties are all transitioning from the regular season to the postseason this week, with championships early next week and the District 1 tournaments to follow. 

Here’s a look at each bracket in the Central League, with a breakdown of each to follow:

Girls
First Round — Thurs., Feb. 6 (at higher seed)
3) Haverford High vs. 6) Springfield (Delco.) (6:00 PM)
4) Radnor vs. 5) Lower Merion (7:00 PM)

Semifinals — Fri., Feb. 7 (at higher seed)
1) Garnet Valley vs. TBD (7:00 PM)
2) Conestoga vs. TBD (6:00 PM)

Championship — Mon., Feb. 10 (Marple Newtown or Harriton)

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The girls’ side of the Central League, from the beginning of the year until now, has been centered around what everybody else refers to as a ‘Big 3.’ Garnet Valley (21-1, 15-1) won the regular-season title, with Conestoga (17-5, 14-2) and Haverford (17-4, 13-3) right on its tail, all three in the top 10 of the District 1 6A rankings. They’re also the only three teams in the league with committed Division I recruits: Garnet Valley has senior Haylie Adamski (Lafayette), a 6-foot-tall sharpshooting wing; Conestoga has Janie Preston (West Point), a 6-foot-1 center who can face up or score around the bucket; Haverford is led by Rian Dotsey (Saint Joseph’s), a 6-foot-1 wing/forward who can play just about every position on the floor. 

Of course, all three also have strong supporting casts. Adamski’s Jaguars feature senior guard Kylie Mulholland, another 1,000-point scorer and dynamic scorer, plus sophomore twins Kylie and Addison Adamski, who are following in their older sister’s footsteps, and senior wing Savannah Saunders, who scored a career-high 16 in a late-January win over Haverford. Alongside Preston, the Pioneers have another Division I recruit in 5-10 shooting guard Ryann Jennings, a speedy senior point guard in MIT-bound Ruth Lanoutte and an experienced junior guard in Maggie Neary. And Haverford starts four seniors, with point guard Megan Kelly, Mya Foley and Natalie Wright joining freshman Grace Maloney in the lineup; the 5-10 Wright pairs with Dotsey to provide the league’s best frontcourt. 

It’ll be tough for Radnor (15-7, 11-5), Lower Merion  (13-9, 9-7) and Springfield (Delco.) (12-10, 8-8) to break through that group to win a league title but all three have had good seasons. Radnor’s junior guard Nyah Yao is one of the top scorers in the league, Lower Merion has a quality backcourt combo in freshman Natalia Kasmer and junior Alexa Braslow plus senior center Megan Walters, and Springfield (Delco.) plays Ky McNichol’s typical brand of defense while junior Lil DiTrolio and seniors Molly Clifford and Alyssa Estep lead them offensively. None have beaten any of the top three yet, so to see any of them in the championship game would mean at least one or two major upsets. 

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Boys
First Round — Thurs., Feb. 6 (at higher seed)
3) Garnet Valley  vs. 6) Springfield (Delco.) (7:00 PM)
4) Conestoga vs. 5) Marple Newtown (6:00 PM)

Semifinals — Fri., Feb. 7 (at higher seed)
1) Penncrest vs. TBD (6:30 PM)
2) Lower Merion vs. TBD (7:00 PM)

Championship — Mon., Feb. 10 (Marple Newtown or Harriton)

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We expected a fairly wide-open race for the top seed in the Central, and that was pretty much what we got. Penncrest took its first nine league games and has been the front-runner the whole way, capturing the league’s regular-season title and its top overall seed. But Lower Merion, ‘Stoga and Garnet Valley were all within a couple games, and Marple and Springfield both finished four games over .500 in league play as well. 

The top-seeded Lions (19-2, 14-2) certainly built on last year, Mike Doyle’s core of juniors — wing forward Mikey Mita and guards Sean Benson, Connor Cahill and Will Stanton — all making significant improvements, though it’s perhaps senior wing Theo Gladue who made the biggest jump. On the flip side, Lower Merion (18-4, 13-3), the defending champs, has almost an entirely new rotation; senior guard Carson Kasmer (Gettysburg) returns, but most of the rest of the lineup is about to get its first dose of postseason play, including seniors Sam’i Singletary, Rayshane Patterson and Gus Wright, who got a little bit of experience a year ago.

Garnet Valley (17-5, 12-4), which lost by a point in the opening round of the league playoffs a year ago, continues to be a force under Mike Brown, who’s got another group of college-level talent to rely on yet again. Senior Jake Sniras (Wilkes) and sophomore Grayson Golek are the two biggest names to know, and senior wing Brady Krautzel is a versatile two-way threat as well. Conestoga (17-5, 12-4), which is the No. 3 team in the unofficial District 1 6A rankings — a spot ahead of Garnet Valley — features a strong junior class with Cory Hogan, Rowan Miller and Shane O’Brien plus seniors Sam Gibbs and Ben Robinson. 

Don’t sleep on Marple (16-6, 10-6) or Springfield, either. Marple senior Matt Gardler is the program’s second-leading scorer, a three-year starter and four-year contributor who’s one of the top lead guards not just in league but all of District 1. He’s been helping prepare freshman Mike Rush to step into his shoes next year, and Rush has had some impressive showings this season, too, with 6-5 senior forward Ryan Keating giving them size up front. Springfield (17-5, 10-6), which has beaten Conestoga and lost to Garnet Valley by just three in January, leans on sophomore TJ Valletti, seniors Jah’Mair Marshall and Chris Dolan, and more.