City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This story is part of CoBL’s “Prepping for Preps” series, which will take a look at many of the top high school programs in the region as part of our 2025-26 season preview coverage. The complete list of schools previewed thus far can be found here.)

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Kyle Wilson got a jolt of excitement last fall when a 6-foot-8 foreign exchange student showed up to an open gym. 

That excitement was quickly dashed — the student was here just for two weeks, a brief exchange, and wanted to see what American hoops was like. Wissahickon’s longtime head coach called it a “heartbreaker,” but he moved on quickly for his 26th season of Trojans hoops. Then, in the spring, he got a call from the school’s foreign exchange counselor, who told him there were four candidates for this year — including that tall youngster from Germany. 

Come this fall, Wilson found himself surprised, for the second time. Jona Sellenriek was back, indeed. But instead of the skinny 6-8 kid he’d been a year prior, he arrived for his full exchange season looking just a little different.

“When he got here I was like ‘you’re a little taller than I remember, Jonas,’” Wilson recalled. “[He responded] in his deep German voice: ‘I grew a few inches,’ and [I’m like] ‘yes, you did.’ So now he’s 6-11. And I said, ‘I also thought you were a little thinner,’ and he’s like ‘I also put on 30 pounds.’ Another bonus as well.”

And so a Wissahickon boys’ season that already held a fair bit of promise suddenly got a whole lot more interesting. With Sellenriek in the mix along with all-league guard Nico Vacchiano, senior forward Delmar Taliaferro and more, the Trojans find themselves with serious hopes of a trophy or two come March. 

Wissahickon has long been a quality program in the Suburban One League’s Liberty conference. But that’s a tough division, with traditional powerhouses Abington and Plymouth Whitemarsh, and Upper Dublin has also been going through something of a golden age the last few years. Wissahickon hasn’t finished higher than fourth in the division since 2021 (third), and hasn't won a division title since 2012. 

Last season, the Trojans finished 11-12 (5-5 SOL), losing to Spring-Ford in the opening round of the District 1 6A tournament. The sights are set much higher this time around.

“We talk about this a lot, we’re really excited for this year, this could be the year we go really far into the states or districts,” senior guard Chris Lee said. “What’s different about this team from the last 6-7 years is the chemistry we have together, we’ve all played together for a while now.”

Though Sellenriek is the new flashy European import, Vacchiano is the heart and soul of the Trojans. The muscular 6-1 guard is an outstanding scorer, averaging 19.1 ppg on the strength of his ability to get to the rim at ease with the ball in his hands, and has all sorts of attention from D-II and D-III types heading into his senior year.  

“He’s one of the most competitive kids I’ve ever coached,” Wilson said. “He plays almost with an anger, or an edge, constantly on his shoulder. And he’s fearless.”

Vacchiano’s playing with extra motivation after missing last year’s district playoff game due to illness. He woke up the day before the loss to Spring-Ford feeling ill, spent the day in bed hoping to rest up. The next day wasn’t any better; he did what he could, but his body wasn’t anywhere near able to get on the court.

“I just couldn’t get out of bed, I was sore everywhere, I tried to get an IV done the same day but nothing really worked,” he said. “It sucked, but, I mean, I had faith in them that they could pull out with a win or put up a big fight, and they did, so I was proud about that. But I still have another year, so I’m going to make the best of it this year.”

While opposing defenses last year could hone in on Vacchiano, this year they’ll have a few other problems to deal with. Sellenkirk is only half of what’s now a powerful frontcourt duo with Taliaferro, a 6-7 bruiser who started at the ‘5’ for the Trojans as a junior. 

Though Taliaferro has missed some time in the fall due to injury, Wissahickon got a glimpse of what it was like this summer to have both posts available at the same time, using them interchangeably or side-by-side in the frontcourt. It’s the most physicality Wilson has had in the frontcourt in over a decade, when he had 6-4 Jordan Reed (Binghamton/Tennessee State basketball) and 6-7 Tanoh Kpassagnon (Villanova football/NFL) leading his team to a Liberty title. 

“There’s nobody who can even guard Delmar, let alone now we have a 6-11 kid,” Vacchiano said. “Teams are going to struggle and we’re going to succeed with them [...]  we have so many different threats, and I think we can tear down a lot of defenses with the people we have on our team this year.”

Lee, a 6-0 combo guard, will be one of the Trojans’ other on-court and off-court leaders this year after starting as a junior. After that, they get young, quickly — sophomore guard Owen Haughey (5-11) is going to start at point guard, and 6-3 sophomore Zach Schwartz is in line for significant minutes after playing on the JV squad as a freshman. Senior guard Luke Slobotkin (6-0), junior guard Jack Weiss (6-2) and sophomore wing guard Milan Fields (6-3) could all break into the rotation as well. 

The Wissahickon boys start their season Dec. 3 with a trip to Harriton, before playing Spring-Ford two days later in the first of two games at North Penn for a season-opening tip-off tournament. The SOL schedule starts with a bang right after that — trips to Upper Dublin (Dec. 9) and Plymouth Whitemarsh (Dec. 12) before a visit from Abington (Dec. 16) are quite an opening trio of league matchups.

In other words, it won’t take long to figure out if Wissahickon’s going to make a push, or if the Trojans will have some serious work to do come January.  

None of them are planning on spending March sitting at home. 

“Not being able to go that far the last six years has really been pushing us to work harder, and finally seeing we have the perfect team, we all fit each other, we all think we can work well with each other,” Lee said. “We all think we can go far this year.”