City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin) +
Olivia Valania
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The 2025 Donofrio Classic championship game is set after Wednesday night’s semifinals, which saw Team Awesome advance to defend its title against a K-Low Elite squad that’s got a lot of history and chemistry behind it. 

Here’s a report from the semifinals:

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Game One: K-Low Elite 107, Marathon Sport 94

K-Low Elite’s senior core has been carrying the Adidas-backed grassroots program’s Donofrio team all tournament long, and Wednesday night was no exception. Though Kai Shinholster (Minnesota) remains sidelined with a sprained ankle suffered a couple weeks back, the quartet of Jacob Meachem (2025 | Hill School), Keni Williams (2025 | SCH Academy), KJ Cochran (2025 | Perkiomen School) and Devin Booker (2025 | Cristo Rey) did the heavy lifting once again to advance to the title game after a first-round loss last year. 

Cochran, a Santa Clara commit, led the way with 31 points, the 6-4 wing continuously getting to the hoop in transition and in the half-court. Meachem, the team’s 5-6 Bucknell commit, was outstanding as he sliced-and-diced his way to 26 points with bunches of assists; Booker knocked down four 3-pointers as the 6-4 George Mason commit capped a 21-point day with an alley-oop slam off the backboard, and Williams (East Stroudsburg) added 13 of his own.

Marathon Sport, which trailed by 14 at the half but cut that to one with under 10 minutes to play before K-Low Elite closed strong, got 26 points from Penn Charter senior and Northwestern commit Jake West and 17 from Archbishop Wood senior Mike Green, who hit four of his five 3-pointers in the second half. Friends’ Select junior Micah Waters rounded out the team’s double-digit scorers with 14. 

Game Two: Team Awesome 127, Flocco’s 104

The underdog run of the tournament came to an end at the hands of the defending champs, as Team Awesome was just a little too awesome for a Flocco’s group that had never been this deep in the Donofrio. 

Though Awesome was missing a good bit of its core in the trio of McKie siblings from St. Joe’s Prep and a couple others, it still had plenty of firepower in the form of Perkiomen School seniors Hayden Johns (28 points) and Gabe Tanner (24 points, four 3’s), along with Camden (N.J.) seniors Manny Joe-Samuel (23 points, three 3’s) and David Munro (14 points), with PCL MVP Jordan Ellerbee (St. Joseph’s Prep) chipping in 15 points and Central Dauphin East guard Wayne Fletcher scoring 14. 

Flocco’s, which quickly fell behind by double digits and trailed by 20-plus for much of the contest, got 27 points from Jacob Nguyen (2025 | Spring-Ford) and 23 points from Nick Harken (2027 | Malvern Prep), plus 15 from Kingston McKoy (2026 | Berks Catholic) and 14 from Tommy Kelly (2025 | Spring-Ford). 

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K-Low Elite’s 2025 class aiming to end on a high note

K-Low Elite’s chemistry has been their weapon throughout the Donofrio Classic.

A team made up of players who have been with the program for three-or-more years, they are able to connect passes for an alley-oop dunk or hit the right player at the perfect time for a three, giving them a leg up on the teams within the tournament, many who are just playing together for the first time.

KJ Cochran (Perkiomen School) and Jacob Meachem (Hill School), two K-Low Elite veterans, have made a run in this tournament. After defeating Marathon Sport in the semifinals they move on to play one last game for K-Low before heading off to start their Division I careers, hoping to come out of it with a championship. 

“It would mean a lot,” Cochran said. “I feel like there’s some doubts and stuff that people have, K-Low, our guys, I feel like we didn’t play a lot of teams around here, AAU teams around here. It’d feel good for sure, our last time playing together.”

Cochran, who has been with K-Low since fifth grade, looks back on all the memories made and bonds created over the years very fondly.

“I would say just off the court, bonding with these guys,” said Cochran, discussing his favorite moments during his time at K-Lowe. “These guys are fun, going to different tournaments and stuff.”

Meachem shares a similar sentiment, being with the team since he was in eighth grade, as he is grateful for those early years.

“Yeah, 8th grade was an awesome experience,” Meachem said. “Probably the greatest time of my AAU career was eighth grade, because that was my first time playing with K-Low. Me and KJ, Kai, Keni, Book, just super-fun memories, I wish I could go back and play again.”

They want to utilize these old memories and chemistry built over the years to give them the edge in the championship. They will face the defending Donofrio Classic champions Team Awesome, made up of players from St. Joe's Prep, Perkiomen School, Camden, and more.

“That's the main thing [chemistry] we have right now.” Meachem said. “We’re older, we’re all committed, we’re all seniors. That chemistry that we built comes from us in 8th grade, those little kids, just knowing what each other’s strengths are and the abilities they can do. Just keeping that the main thing.”

For all but a couple underclassmen on the team, this is their collective goodbye to high school basketball. 

Cochran, who will head out to Santa Clara on June 30 for summer work, wants to make sure he is ready for that high level and that he is improving his game every time he steps out onto the court. Meachem, who is only around 5-7, understands that to play at the Division I level at Bucknell he needs to focus on getting stronger and getting bigger before leaving for college the second week of June.

But, before all of that they have a Donofrio Classic final to play in. What would be a better way to end their many years at K-Low than winning a championship together.

This is awesome to win a potential championship tomorrow,” Meachem said. “It would mean everything to us, to end it off with a bang.” — Olivia Valania

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Johns, Team Awesome back in the title game

Hayden Johns is in his second year in the Philadelphia area, in his second Donofrio Classic, playing for his second Donofrio title. 

It didn’t take him that long to realize that’s a pretty neat opportunity — even if the Donofrio wasn’t anything he was ever aware of growing up in Cambridge, Ontario, right outside Toronto. 

“[I realized] after the first game, because I saw how many people came here,” the 6-foot-5, 205-pound Perkiomen School senior said. “To see all the community that comes out just to watch some local basketball, it’s really cool, for sure. Some of the players like Kyrie and stuff played in this [...] and the fact that you can etch your name in that by winning, it’s a really cool experience.”

Johns was a big part of Team Awesome’s 2024 championship win, scoring 19 points in the title game last year as the St. Joe’s Prep/George School trio of Jordan Ellerbee, Jalen Harper and Tristan Guillouette powered the way for a group led by Lehigh Valley basketball figure Toomey Anderson.

He’s been a major piece for Perkiomen School each of the last two years as well, coming down from Canada to join the area prep powerhouse, first to play under Tom Baudinet and then staying through a coaching change to finish out under Harry Morra. It was at an open gym this past fall that Saint Anselm (N.H.) coach Chris Santo first watched Johns play, then came back later that fall to watch him again. 

Santo, a Cherry Hill East grad and former Saint Anselm great, got Johns up to campus shortly thereafter, and Johns committed to the Division II program midway through his senior year. He’d been talking to Jefferson, plus D-Is Maine and Loyola (Md.) as well, but the connection with Santo and assistant coach Trey Whitter won out. 

“We played Phelps School,” Johns said, “and they drove six hours to watch me play, talk to me. After I saw that, that made me make up my (mind), and decided to go there.”

Saint Anselm, which plays in the powerhouse Northeast-10 Conference, went 15-15 (9-11 NE-10) last year. In addition to Santo, one of the other best players in program history is 2015 Germantown Academy graduate Tim Guers, the Hawks’ all-time leading scorer (2,327), who’s still playing professional basketball overseas. 

Johns is hoping the defensive improvements he’s made since arriving at Perkiomen will enable him to play early on at St. A’s; a physical left-hander, he can play the ‘3’ or a small-ball ‘4’ and knows he needs to continue developing his skillset to excel at both.

 “I’m just trying to sharpen everything up,” he said. “Keep my jumper, get it more crisp, more consistent, make better reads and get my handle tighter.” — Josh Verlin

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Marty Eckert (in white) poses with the 2025 Flocco's squad. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Flocco’s surprise run ends in semifinals

Marty Eckert has been around the Donofrio Classic a time or two, or 58. 

The 68-year-old Conshohocken native and longtime area figure has been coming to the Fellowship House since 1968, he says, and has been involved with one particular team since, he estimates, “2009 or 2010.” First called Pizza Time and now Flocco’s, sponsored by the longtime Conshohocken sports apparel business, it’s a team that Eckert has served as the unofficial general manager of over the years, without much success in the tournament, though not without its reasons. 

“Usually it’s under-the-radar kids, kids who need to play, need to gain some exposure,” Eckert said. That can be a tough go against teams full of the area’s top talent, many of whom get plenty of exposure as it is. But this year’s Flacco’s roster featured some real talent in Spring-Ford seniors Jacob Nguyen and Tommy Kelly, Berks Catholic’s Kingston McKoy, and others, and it clicked. 

Flocco won its first three Donofrio matchups this year, making it all the way to the semifinals for the first time, delighting its general manager. Eckert gathered the Flocco’s players and assembled parents in the Fellowship House lobby afterwards, speaking to them for several minutes about what the run meant to him and how proud he was of the group, which was coached by Spring-Ford assistant Dan Corr and Spring-Ford alum Ryan Fitzpatrick.

“For me, this is awesome because (the tournament) went faster because we were still in it,” Eckert said. “The nicest thing that I saw is, these kids restored my faith in teenage kids and high school athletics. Most of our kids are seniors, and April senior year you’ve got proms and graduation, and this and that, getting ready for college and all of that jazz, these kids made it a point and they played all four games like they loved the games.

“After the second game, we said, we competed in this, let’s go after it. We got to the final four, we’ve never done that. Host team’s never done that. It’s great for them, I had a blast.”

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Camden’s Munro down to final two

A Donofrio Classic newbie, Camden’s David Munro is figuring out what this tournament is about.

For the second year in a row Team Awesome is advancing to the finals, looking to defend their title and claim the championship repeat. Munro added to the team’s dominant win over Flocco’s in the semis with a 14-point effort.

Munro, a 6-8, 225-pound senior, comes from Neptune, New Jersey. He started his high school career at College Achieve in Asbury Park, New Jersey but spent his final year at Camden. Being closer now to Philadelphia, his AAU coach recruited him to play in this tournament.

“I’m not from this area really so all of this is pretty new,” Munro said.

Yet to make his college decision, Munro has narrowed it down to two schools: Merrimack and Central Connecticut. Next week he plans to visit both schools in order to cut it down to one. He knows what he is looking for out of both schools and will know when one feels right.

 “To see how they play, really,” said Munro, when asked about his focus for the visits. “To see the school campus and everything that’s going to be a huge factor.”

He said he has been in contact with these schools prior to the start of his senior season. Munro talks with both Merrimack's head coach Joe Gallo and Central Connecticut’s head coach Patrick Sellers quite often as the clock ticks for him to make his final decision.

“Both are great teams and both (coaches) are great people,” he said. — Olivia Valania