City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
—

(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.)

~~~

For the second year in a row, Chester Charter’s juniors have a big adjustment to make. 

Quite a few members of the Sabres’ Class of 2027 followed head coach Lonnie Diggs from Math, Civics & Sciences to Chester after MCS’ closure at the end of the 2023-24 season. There, they combined with the returning CCSA players and a couple other newcomers to form a new-look group.

There were some growing pains, but ultimately Diggs guided his group to 24 wins, a District 1 Class 1A championship and into the PIAA state quarterfinals. And while they had a star senior to lead in the way in Josiah Hutson, the sophomores were a major part of all that success, forming a significant chunk of the varsity roster, rotation and production. 

If they want to equal or better that result this year, the Chester Charter juniors have to go from supporting cast to leading roles. A couple key losses to graduation and transfer mean that the Sabres’ junior class isn’t just the majority of the team’s roster, but also represents just about all of the team’s collective varsity experience.

“This year everybody’s got big opportunities to step up,” junior guard Jamar Groomes told CoBL.” Everybody plays different roles, more minutes, more time to stand out, so there’s a lot of opportunities for a lot of people, including myself.”

The Sabers’ juniors are a group of seven: guards Chris Cook (6-1), Naz Feggins (5-10), Groomes (5-9), TJ Jones (6-0) and Dom Miller (6-3), plus forwards Maurice Barnes (6-4) and Gerald Gale (6-4). They’re joined by one senior, 6-0 guard Jabree Hall, and a handful of promising underclassmen. 

Barnes, who scored 21 points in the Sabers’ District 1 championship win over The Christian Academy, is one of two returning starters along with Miller, a part-time starter a year ago who added nine in that win. Groomes came off the bench last year behind Hutson, now doing a post-graduate year at Garden State Academy (N.J.).

That trio will do a lot of the heavy lifting; Groomes with the ball in his hands as the team’s starting point guard, Miller as its best outside shooter and Barnes as its best post threat. 

Hutson wasn’t the only significant departure this offseason. Senior guard Jah Sabb, who would have been one of their leading scorers, is now at Samuel Fels; junior wing Nieem Gregory, a versatile 6-3 forward in line for a starting up, moved to Delaware.

“Dom Miller. I feel like he is one of the most improved players in the area, and I think he will take a huge jump,” Diggs said. “Maurice Barnes has improved his perimeter skills and will be an inside-outside matchup problem, and Jamar Groomes will be the primary ball handler, after starring for BW Elite this summer.”

That puts players like Feggins, Jones and Gale in line to see a significant uptick in minutes; Cook, who goes by ‘Poodie,’ was at an online school last season but will be in the rotation mix as well.

They don’t have a ton of high-level size, with Barnes and Gale along with 6-6 freshman Glenn Williams — who might contribute to the rotation depending on his recovery from an offseason injury — representing their interior presence. 

“Our team is pretty versatile,” Groomes said. “We don’t have that much height, so everybody can create plays; obviously, people have their strengths and weaknesses, but for the most part everybody’s comfortable on the ball. Everybody can create plays for not only themselves, but their teammates.”

The common theme from coach and players alike was how close this year’s team is. 

“I think we’ve got a really cohesive group,” Diggs said. “I don’t think we’ll have as much talent as we had last year, for sure, but I think the group is much more cohesive, and they just play really well together.”

“Our chemistry is through the roof right now,” Miller said. “We all understand each other, and we enjoy playing with each other, because we’re friends, deeply, off the court.”

Last year was also Chester Charter’s first year in the Bicentennial Athletic League, where the Sabers finished in second place in the regular season with a 14-1 league record. They met up with Delco Christian, who dealt them their only regular-season league loss, in the championship; the Knights took that one too, 72-52. 

Delco Christian remains one of Chester Charter’s main obstacles to winning a BAL championship in February, along with Dock Mennonite and MaST Charter, who finished third and fourth last year, respectively. They’ll likely be favorites to repeat as District 1 1A champs for the fifth straight year, and are one of two area teams — along with Sankofa Freedom, last year’s state runner-ups — with legitimate hopes of making it to Hershey in March to play for a state title.

“The top of our whiteboard is just to win as much as we can,” Miller said, “but I feel like our main thing is to keep getting better every day, keep getting gradually better. Winning is always going to be our top priority, but we want to just be getting better in the process.”