City of Basketball Love

Finn Courtney (@finncourtney_)
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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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It’s been a similar story for Lower Merion the past two seasons - graduate talented seniors, come into a season underrated and undervalued and yet continually, storm through the Central League and find their way to a league championship. 

And for head coach Gregg Downer, entering his 36th season as head coach, it’s likely to be a third year of that same story for the two-time defending champs.

“This is the second year in a row that we’ve graduated our entire starting lineup,” Downer said, and the year before they graduated four of five. “The only person with really any varsity experience is Kyle Parrish and the message will be next man up. There’s a lot of players that have been waiting for this moment [and] it’s time for them to step up and it’s their turn to get onto the court.”

From last year’s team, a team that won the Central League, lost in the District 1 6A semifinals as the top overall seed to Plymouth Whitemarsh and lost in the opening round of states to Roman Catholic, this year’s time is virtually unrecognizable in comparison. With the entire starting lineup departing and rotation piece Chris Cook’s transfer to Roman, only Parrish returns as a player who got regular varsity playing time a season ago. This year, the junior guard goes from a rotation piece to a key cog in the Aces’ machine and Parrish was open in embracing the challenges this team faces.

“I love it. For the last three years, Lower Merion has always been the underdog in any circumstance,” Parrish said. “So it’s nothing, nothing different and we just gotta come back. Come back even stronger than the last two years.”

Outside of Parrish, this Lower Merion team is filled with guys who had little-to-no roles this past year and will be expected to take major steps forward, namely seniors Arjay Miller and Finn Pulsifier, junior big men Nick Dragut and Will Yard and 6-0 sophomore Nile Ingram, who Downer expects to play a big role this season. For the Aces’ legendary head coach, shuffling a new roster around has become something akin to old hat at this point.

“This particular nucleus has been working really hard since April,” Downer said. “I think we understand that our window of opportunity is not as large as it sometimes is and we’re really trying to make the best of what we have. I think Arjay had a really good offseason, Finn has improved greatly [and] a player who we think could be very dynamic, literally just coming off the football field is [Nile.] You know, every year is like a jigsaw puzzle and that’s part of the fun of coaching, moving the pieces around and seeing where [they fit.]”

For Miller, who also runs track at Lower Merion and serves as sports editor for ‘The Merionite,’ this upcoming season marks not just a full season’s chance to contribute to the Aces in a meaningful way as a leader on and off the court, but it’s a dream come true.

“It’s an honor, I’ve been waiting my whole life to have a big role on this team, so I’m just excited to be a part of it this year,” Miller said. “Every year, LM loses a lot of seniors and I feel like every year, they say it’s not gonna be out year, but everybody on this team’s ready to step up, everybody’s been putting in the work to be ready and it just motivates us. We’re ready.”

Meanwhile in the frontcourt, both the 6-3 Yard and 6-4 Dragut will lead the way, but it might be a long season underneath for the Aces. Both Yard and Dragut are still ailing from injuries, the latter, who doubles as a varsity baseball player, of whom is still recovering from surgery for a Jones fracture of his ankle.

“[Dragut’s] a big part of our rebounding equation and he’s been hurt, Will Yard has been hurt [and] we are worried about height,” Downer said. “There might be times when we play four guards. It seems like every basketball coach is going to be a little bit paranoid about a lack of rebounding, but this particular group has us definitely worried in that department. And [it’s going to be] rebounding by committee, our guards are going to have to rebound.”

It’s not just rebounding that’ll have to be done by committee, the scoring for the Aces looks like it’ll be by committee as well with Parrish and Ingram leading the way as the team’s most ‘dynamic scorers’ and Pulsifer, Miller and Dragut right behind them. Depth looks to be a strength this year, with Downer saying he might go as many as ten-deep on a regular basis.

The road back to a Central League threepeat and the regular appearances in districts and states gets no easier this year. Lower Merion opens with a very challenging schedule at Coatesville on Dec. 5, home the next night against Downingtown West and then league play against Garnet Valley and Conestoga.

“It’s gonna be hard, but I gotta keep my team under control most of the time, we’re a small team so gotta play fast, we got to get strong enough [to match up] with teams,” Parrish said. “What I’m going to try to do with my team is uplift them to the most they can be, to the best potential in all games and all practices so we can get off to the right start this season. [...] So let’s see what our team is made of.”

However, expectations come playoff time remain the same as always for the Aces, who have qualified for states 16 years in a row - a District 1 record.

“We always want to try to qualify for three tournaments, the league tournament, the district tournament and the state tournament,” Downer said. “The Central League is, in my opinion, kind of top heavy this year with a tremendous Penncrest team, a tremendous defending District 1 champion in Conestoga and a dangerous [Garnet Valley] team. [And] again, we don’t take any of this for granted, but the expectations never change. We want to qualify for these tournaments and [the] next thing that kind of comes onto the radar screen is can you scrape out a 20-win season.”