City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)

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PHILADELPHIA — Ryan Torres stood under a stairwell of La Salle’s TruMark Financial Center looking down at his gold meal and shaking his head. The Academy of New Church junior guard is generously listed at 5-foot-11, though may be closer to 5-8 with three inches of curly black hair added.

Torres knows how close he was to none of this happening, to being an important cog of ANC’s repeat as Friends Schools League boys’ basketball champions, after the Lions’ dominating 70-54 performance over regular-season champion George School on Friday night.

A year ago, Torres was thinking very strongly of giving up basketball. He had been cut from the junior varsity his sophomore year at Roman Catholic. He was told he was not good enough. It was a power punch to his hoops psyche.

“Honestly, that day I cried, and told my mom I didn’t think I wanted to hoop anymore,” recalled Torres, who was one of five double-digit scorers for the Lions with 13 points, behind the team-high of Marquis Newson’s 14, followed by Cameron Smith’s 12, Dior Carter’s 11 and Bryce Rollerson’s 10.

“I didn’t think basketball was for me anymore. Maybe that dream I had as a kid wasn’t so cut out for me. But coming here to ANC, they helped me keep that dream alive.”

The ANC coaching staff, Kevin and Shannon Givens, did it by putting Torres back together again. He caught shrapnel his first week of training camp. They did not pamper him. It’s why it made the medal he wore with it. The last time he wore a basketball medal around his neck, he figures, goes back to grade school.

“Coming to ANC, all the coaches saw something in me,” Torres said. “There have been a lot of up and downs and the coaches had a lot of faith in me tonight and I’m grateful for that.”

Torres scored 10 of his 13 points in the fourth quarter opening what had been a reasonably competitive game to that point. It was his corner three with 5:24 to play that gave the Lions a healthy double-digit 51-40 lead that they expanded. During one 11-7 stretch, Torres scored eight of ANC’s points.

“Ryan has had huge moments for us all year long,” said Shannon Givens, Kevin’s son. “There were a few different games when he did not get as much playing time as he probably wanted, but he was gaining the experience. He came over with us and we told his would come. What we try to do is big up all our players. He is probably one our best shooters in the gym. We just wanted to give him a chance to get going.”

ANC never gave George School a chance. The Lions led from start to finish, getting out to an 9-2 lead. The talented Newson did most of the work, scoring 12 of his 14 in the first half.

“This feels amazing to be a part of this,” said Newson, who transferred into ANC this year out of Sanford (Del.). “In the beginning of the season, we were not playing too much as a team, doing more isos a little bit. We started growing as a team, and the difference came against Hun School. We showed we could play defense. We made Hun an average team, and they’re a pretty good team.”

So, too, is George School.

Cougars’ coach Ben Luber openly credited ANC for its shot making and pressure defense.

“We didn’t necessarily play George School basketball,” said Luber, whose Cougars beat ANC during the regular season, 78-72, back on January 22 during the Cougars’ 9-0 stretch through the league to reach the finals. “It’s a great learning experience to be in this championship game. We rushed some shots, but credit to ANC because they play defense at a high level.”

Once ANC head coach Kevin Givens got his players to buy in defensively, which showed in the recent 59-44 victory over Hun School on January 30. That told Kevin his team could play with anyone.

That changed the Lions’ season.

“We are peaking at the right time, and we are getting guys to believe at the right time,” Kevin said. “That Hun School game changed everything. We saw the turn happen with aggressive defense, and saw that change. Once we saw that, we thought we would have a shot at repeating.

“Ryan has won a couple of games for us. He has had his moments, and when Bryce (Rollerson) got hurt, Ryan stepped in and played very well.”

By Quarter
ANC (18-9): 14 | 12 | 18 | 26 || 70
George School (19-5): 8 | 10 | 18 | 18 || 54

Scoring
ANC: Marquis Newson 14, Ryan Torres 13, Cameron Smith 12, Dior Carter 11, Bryce Rollerson 10, Jasin Custus-Dancy 6, Caleb Alston-Nelson 4.

George School: Peyton Miller 21, Luke Melniczak 14, Kasey Fleming 7, Reeve Sysko 5, Fallou Diouf 5, Ryan Melniczak 2.

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Westtown girls get their fifth-straight FSL championship

It comes from the top and filters on down. Westtown girls’ basketball coach Fran Burbidge drives it home in practice and in games. It is a great recipe for complacency: Ignore the numbers and throw everything into performance.  

Burbidge himself did not know the Moose were playing for their fifth-straight Friends Schools League girls championship Friday night against Friends Central in the first game of a girls-boys championship doubleheader.

Burbidge found out after the Moose easily handled Friends Central, 82-51, behind a game-high 34 points from Jordyn Palmer, 15 from Jessie Moses and 13 from Atlee Vanesko.

“I think the attitude comes from how we battled this year,” Burbidge said. “When someone asks if this is five in a row, honestly, we don’t think about things like that. We come into the gym each day and hope to get better. We don’t put any goals up. We hope to get better each day. If we do that collectively, and you have high-level kids buy into that, when we pick our heads up at the of the year, chances are everyone will have a smile on their face.”

Junior Atlee Vanesko and senior Olivia Jones, the Moose team captains, say the team is a self-motivated bunch and much of that is derived in practice. It is a iron- sharpens-iron mentality.

They both admitted they rarely look at the scoreboard. They did not have to do much of that Friday night.

“Winning cannot get too old, I would rather score zero points, and as long as we win, I’m good with that,” Vanesko said.

By halftime, Westtown held a 35-27 edge, leading by as much as 35-23 after a Moses’ layup. There was one lead change, when the Moose took the lead for good a Moses’ basket with 6:11 left in the first quarter.

The Phoenix battled. But each time it looked like Westtown would run away, the Phoenix would surge back with a flare to pull within a score. But it seemed only a matter of time before the Westtown dam would break and the Moose would come rushing through.

The pressure was already causing problems for Friends Central, which turned the ball over 10 times in the first half, thanks to Palmer and Moses cheating up off their assignments and doubling the ball early in the half court. It forced the Phoenix that much harder to get into their offense, and playing with a 30-second shot clock, it forced Friends Central to force shots.

The Moose took complete control of the game on a 15-4 run to open the third quarter. Friends Central never got within 10 points again.

“We just go out and play, the way we usually play, and it’s nonstop,” Palmer said. “We don’t really keep track of the records and things. I’ll peak up at the scoreboard. But mostly, if we play the way we’re able to play, we’re going to come out on top.”

By Quarter
Friends Central (23-9): 14  |   11   |  13  |  11  || 51

Westtown (24-3):  17  |  18  |  22  |  25  ||  82

Scoring

Friends Central: Logyn Greer 18, Zya Small 13, Nal’la Bennett 9, Kaiya Rain Tucker 5, Phoenix Walker 3, Jordyn Adderly 2, Saniyah Washington 1.

Westtown: Jordyn Palmer 34, Jessie Moses 15, Atlee Vanesko 13, Olivia Jones 6, Radhi Sundararajan 5, Vianna Kanyamiheto-Watson 5, Isahanna Sundararajan 4.

Joseph Santoliquito is an 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 BlueSky here.