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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Grace Nasr isn’t trying to think ahead, but the thought has crossed her mind. 

The Notre Dame junior has already won two Inter-Ac championships in her first two years with the Irish. And with a deep and strong 2027 class around her, combined with a quality crop of seniors and some promising youngsters, a third is a real possibility. Which would set her and her classmates up to finish out a memorable run on the Main Line. 

“To look up at that banner and see four years that basketball won the Inter-Ac, and those are the four years that I spent here,” she said, “that would be very cool.”

First things first — or, rather, third things third. 

The back-to-back defending Inter-Ac champs graduated senior guards Catie Kelly and Sophia Hall from last year’s squad, which went 26-4 overall (12-0 Inter-Ac) and lost by two to Friends’ Central in the Pennsylvania Independent School (PAISAA) state semifinals. 

Nasr, the Irish’s 6-foot-3 center and Division I hoops recruit, leads a group of returners for third-year head coach Terry Mancini that also has as co-headliner her classmate Riley Davis; Davis, the defending Inter-Ac hoops MVP, emerged this offseason as the nation’s No. 1 lacrosse recruit, recently committing to Penn State for her work on the field. 

The two of them are joined by a whole host of varsity returners: seniors Emma Anthony (5-6 G), Finley Davis (6-0 F), Alex Gillin (6-0 G/F) and Emma Rocheleau (5-10 F) along with juniors Sadie Birdsall (5-8 G), Maddie DeFronzo (5-8 G) and Riley Mackey (5-6 G). Two more juniors, Ava Hall (5-7 G) and Riley McDonnell (5-8 G) are in the mix as well, along with potentially a couple freshmen. 

In other words: they’re deep. And for the most part, versatile; just about everybody in that group is good on and off the ball, with Anthony, Birdsall and DeFronzo likely the best shooters out of the group. Everybody’s capable of chipping in in various ways, can play multiple positions, and nobody cares where their contribution shows up in the box score.

“I think the main thing that helps us with that whole situation is our chemistry’s really strong, and we all get together really well,” said Gillin, who can play anything from the ‘1’ through the ‘4’ for the Irish. “We put a lot of trust in each other because we know we have each other’s backs, and it helps us out in practice because the second team’s always pushing the first team, and that competition allows us to be prepared for games.”

“We want to try to get people involved and we’re thinking of ways of playing uptempo, maybe running and jumping, pressing, things of that nature,” Mancini said. “We’ve always been a man-to-man team for the most part. There’s a lot of opportunities, we lost two starters so we’re hoping people step up.”

While Riley Davis, a hyper-athletic 5-10 guard, might be the most well-known name on the Irish squad thanks to her multi-sport abilities and her family’s sports legacy, it’s Nasr who’s taken the biggest strides in her game this offseason. 

Even though she’s been out since July with a leg injury from which she’s nearing a return, Nasr has been reeling in Division I offers all offseason, bringing her list up to double-digits: Drexel, Penn, St. Joe’s and Princeton headline a group that includes more than half of the Patriot League as well as Buffalo. 

 “I think after getting my first couple offers after the first Under Armour session this spring, it was a big sense of encouragement for me,” she said. “Not being able to play in the July sessions and being able to get some offers was definitely encouraging and motivating me that I was going to come back from my injury and be better than before.”

“One of the things that’s impressed me is [that] she’s coming out of her shell as a leader, which is, in her position, is important,” Mancini said. “She’s just a very intelligent basketball player, rarely does she get in foul trouble [...] she’s probably the best passer on our team, which is going to bode well for her in college, and I know a lot of college coaches I talked to are impressed with that part of her game.”

What those coaches want to see next from the promising young forward is for her to expand her shooting range. Nasr said that as she works her way back to the court, she’s able to take jumpers and work on her 3-point abilities, which she’s hoping to show off this season. Mancini said he’s hoping to use her at the ‘4’ at points alongside Finely Davis, Riley’s older sister, who can also play both frontcourt sports or spell Nasr at the ‘5.’

Mancini has a tough non-conference slate lined up for Notre Dame before Inter-Ac play starts in January. The Irish open up at Archbishop Carroll on Dec. 2, then go up to the Hill School for a three-game tournament; Gwynedd Mercy, Imhotep Charter and a team from Australia all visit Notre Dame in December before a pair of games in the O’Hara holiday showcase close out the year. 

Notre Dame’s biggest challenger for the Inter-Ac crown seems to be an equally-deep Germantown Academy squad, the runner-up a year ago, whose only two league losses came to the Irish. Agnes Irwin, young and eager, is a dark horse. 

“We’re all really excited and we know what we have to achieve,” Gillin said. “I think everyone’s been putting in the work all around, so we’re excited to see how it all turns out.”