City of Basketball Love

By David Comer
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of our 2025-26 season coverage, which will run for the six weeks preceding the first official games of the year on Nov. 3. To access all of our high school and college preview content for this season, click here.)

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The start of the 2025-26 Division III women’s basketball season is upon us, and there is no shortage of high-level players, top-notch coaches and quality teams in the Philadelphia area. Catching an entertaining game in a hot gym on a chilly winter night may be the best bargain around - many schools don’t charge admission and those that do charge a reasonable one. What you will see will impress you on many levels. Here are several questions that will be answered in the next few months in the local Division III basketball scene.

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1. Can Widener live up to its lofty expectations?

There are more than 400 women’s basketball programs in Division III, so for Widener to receive votes in the D3hoops.com preseason Top 25 is noteworthy. The Pride received six votes in the poll, ranking them 46th in the nation heading into a season that warrants optimism.

The team’s three top scorers return from last year’s squad that finished 18-9 and lost to Messiah in the MAC Commonwealth championship game. That team played its best down the stretch, winning seven of eight games before falling in the conference title tilt.

Widener is picked second in the preseason MAC Commonwealth poll behind Messiah, which is the lone other league team to have received votes in the D3hoops.com preseason Top 25.

Leading the way for Alisa Kintner's Pride will undoubtedly be senior Mia Robbins. The 5-foot-11 post player from Voorhees, N.J., has been a force for Widener since first stepping foot on campus. She averaged exactly 8.4 rpg in each of her first three seasons, while her scoring average has increased each year from 12.4 to 14.6 to 18.0 ppg. She surpassed 1,000 career points during her junior season and will enter her senior campaign with 1,120. Robbins was named first-team All-MAC Commonwealth last year.

Complementing Robbins will be a pair of guards in 5-foot-8 senior Lindsay Kutz and 5-foot-6 sophomore Riley Stackhouse. Last year, Kutz, who is from Pottsville averaged 10.2 ppg, 8.6 rpg and 2.9 apg in earning second-team all-league honors. Meanwhile, Stackhouse, who played at West Chester Rustin, jumped right into the starting lineup as a freshman and averaged 7.0 ppg.

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2. Can Immaculata return to the NCAA Tournament?

Brittany Whalen, in just her second season as head coach, led the Mighty Macs to a 22-4 record, regular-season and postseason AEC championships and a berth in the NCAA tournament last year. Her team went 10-0 during the AEC regular season and 14-0 at home in recording Immaculata’s first 20-win season since 1976. She and her staff were named AEC Coaching Staff of the Year in the AEC for their efforts.

Whalen, a 2015 Immaculata graduate who was a standout basketball and softball player as an undergraduate, will look to replicate last season’s success - but it won’t be easy.

The Mighty Macs have a terrific building block in sophomore Carly Coleman, a 5-foot-10 forward from Cardinal O’Hara, where she won three PIAA championships and one Philadelphia Catholic League title. As a freshman, she was named the AEC Rookie of the Year after averaging 10.4 ppg and 8.8 rpg. She played her best at the end of the season, scoring in double figures in eight of her team’s final nine games, including a team-high 10 points in a loss in the NCAA tournament to Ohio Wesleyan.

Immaculata will have to replace several key players, including standouts Reese Mullins, who was the AEC Player of the Year last season, Tessa Liberatoscioli, who was the AEC Co-Defensive Player of the Year, and Abigail Boyer, who averaged 9.5 ppg and was second on the team in assists while starting all 26 games.

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3. Will Penn State-Abington make it consecutive winning seasons?

Last year, Tiara White made quite an impact during her first season as the head coach at Penn State Abington. Without a player on the roster taller than 5-foot-11, White led the Nittany Lions to an 18-8 overall record and 13-3 in the UEC. It was the program’s first winning season since the 2017-18 campaign.

Leading the way for Penn State Abington again this season will be a versatile group including junior Amirah Hackney, a 5-foot-9 guard/forward from Philadelphia who played at Neumann-Goretti. She earned first-team All-UEC honors last season after averaging 13.6 ppg and 7.4 rpg. She enters the year with 773 career points and will likely reach 1,000.

Also returning for the Nittany Lions is junior Amina Reid, a 5-foot-5 guard who played at West Catholic. She averaged 14.1 ppg and led the team in assists last season. Reid is also a key to the team’s defense that forced 15.8 turnovers per game a year ago.

Nia Newman, a 5-foot-6 guard/forward from Rockville, Md., who averaged 12.5 ppg and a team-best 10.0 rpg, is back for her senior season.

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4. Can DelVal take a step forward?

Last season was a difficult one for the Aggies, as they finished 3-22 and ended the season with nine straight losses under first-year coach Lauren Stackhouse. 

But look for things to improve for the Aggies, as Stackhouse, a 2022 DelVal grad who is a member of the school’s hall of fame after a stellar career during which she set the school’s rebounding record with 951 rebounds and also scored 1,185 points, returns for her second season. (Stackhouse is the mother of Widener’s Riley Stackhouse who is discussed above.)

Gone to graduation is Haley Keenan, who scored 1,725 career points, but four starters return for the Aggies.

Those returning starters include three seniors - Alexis Wright, Ciana Feliciano and Aubrey Ennis. Wright, a 5-foot-11 forward, was second on the team in scoring at 14.8 ppg and led DelVal in rebounding 8.8 rpg. Feliciano, a 5-foot-4 guard, averaged 8.0 ppg, while Ennis, a 5-foot-5 guard, averaged 7.1 ppg and led the team in assists. The fourth returning starter is junior Jayla Rivera, who scored 6.4 ppg.

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5. Will Arcadia continue its winning ways under a new coach?

A year ago, the Knights finished 17-9 and reached the semifinals of the MAC Freedom Tournament. This year, with several key members from that team returning, an even better season could be in store for Arcadia.

The Knights, however, will be under new leadership. Diane Decker, a 1989 Villanova grad who brings several years of head coaching at the Division II and III levels, will be in her first season at Arcadia after the departure of Jackie Hartzell. Decker served as the head coach at Division II East Stroudsburg from 2015 to 2019 and most recently was in charge at Division III Lebanon Valley for the last three years. Decker will be assisted by her coach at Villanova, the legendary Harry Perretta, who will be in his first season at Arcadia. Perretta, with his innovative and difficult-to-defend offenses, compiled a 783-489 record during his 42 seasons at Villanova.

Decker replaces Hartzell, who after three seasons at Arcadia, left to take over the program at Division I Rider. Hartzell’s teams at Arcadia enjoyed the program’s best two-year stretch (39-14) during the last two seasons.

Helping lead the way will be senior Delaney Bell. The 5-foot-8 wing from Bensalem, who became the first MAC Freedom Player of the Year in program history, averaged better than 15 points per contest (15.4 ppg) for the second straight year. Bell, who has started since her freshman year, continued to put up massive rebounding numbers for her size/position (8.1 rpg), as she has 709 career rebounds in just 80 games. Bell surpassed the 20-point mark six times and collected eight double-doubles. 

Also returning for her senior season will be Hanna Rhodes, a 5-foot-5 junior from Abington Friends, Rhoades was Arcadia's leading scorer last season (17.4 ppg) and wasn’t shy from beyond the arc, taking 256 three-pointers -- just shy of 10 per game -- and hitting them at a 35.5% clip, which put her third in all of Division III hoops in three-pointers made (91). The ninth player in program history to surpass the 1,000-point scorer, she was also the leading scorer in the MAC Freedom last year and a first-team all-league selection.

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6. What will the post-Lauren Klieber era bring at Neumann?

As the calendar was about to turn from 2024 to 2025, senior Lauren Klieber, a 5-foot-9 guard, was having one of her best games. The West Chester East graduate had already scored 33 points against Trinity College, and the game was still in the third quarter. And then bad luck struck, as Klieber injured her left knee and was lost for the season. (In a touching moment, after suffering the injury, the Knights got Klieber back on the court on Senior Night, so she could make one more layup.)

Neumann, without Klieber for half of the season, battled its way to a 16-10 record and the AEC championship game. With her, maybe there was an NCAA Tournament berth in the cards. Klieber was that good. For her career, she has averaged 16.7 ppg and 7.3 rpg; she finished her career fourth in program history with 1,571 points. 

The Knights will have a star to lead the way this season, as Emily DuPont returns for her fifth year. The 5-foot-9 forward from Great Valley was stellar both offensively and defensively for Neumann last season, earning first-team All-AEC and AEC Co-Defensive Player of the Year honors while averaging 16.4 ppg and 6.8 rpg. DuPont, despite only playing 20 total games during her first two seasons at Neumann, has scored 938 career points. 

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7. Can Ursinus replace the production of Chinwe Irondi?

Chinwe Irondi arrived at Ursinus as an unrecruited freshman and left the school after putting together a legendary career capped off by a spectacular senior season. As a senior last year, the 6-foot forward was Player of the Year in the Centennial Conference after leading the league in scoring (20.2 ppg), rebounding (10.0 rpg) and field goal percentage (60.9%). She finished her career with the second-most points (1,818) and second most rebounds (1,015) in program history.

But life must go on - even without Irondi. Fortunately for the Bears, they return several solid players as they look to improve on last season’s 16-10 record.

Leading the way will be Madison Smith, a 5-foot-9 senior forward from Philadelphia out of Friends Central, who was an excellent second option last season. Smith averaged 11.9 ppg and 6.2 rpg and scored in double figures in 20 of 25 games. She was an honorable mention All-Centennial Conference selection, 

The backcourt should be a strength for Ursinus with senior Ava Possenti, 5-6 guard Garnet Valley, who is a defensive whiz. She is sixth in program history with 167 career steals and could surpass the record of 275 with a season similar to last year when she set a single-season school record with 115 steals. Possenti also averaged 9.3 ppg.

Also returning in the backcourt is Colleen Blackman, a 5-foot-9 senior guard from New Fairfield, Conn., who averaged 11.6 ppg and led the Centennial Conference in three-pointers made (72) and three-point percentage (32.6%).