City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)

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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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Now comes the hard part—repeating. Bishop Shanahan has been here before, two years ago, when the Eagles won the District 1 Class 4A championship. They entered the 2024 season looking to repeat, only to be stopped by District 1 rival Pope John Paul II. After the Eagles rebounded last year to win the district title for the second time in three years, Bishop Shanahan’s head coach John Dougherty knows well the grind ahead and the heat that comes with repeating as district champions.

Shanahan is coming off a highly successful 2025 season, going 9-3 in the brutal Ches-Mont League National, and finishing 20-10 overall. The Eagles won two state playoff games and reached the PIAA Class 4A quarterfinals, where they fell to eventual Class 4A state champion Devon Prep.

Shanahan will need to overcome the gaping void left by the graduations of 6-foot-5 Ryan Ambrose (Kings College) and 6-foot-8 forward Sean Griffin, a Navy commit. But Dougherty, one of the area’s more underappreciated coaches who enters his seventh season, does return two starters in 6-4 senior forward Andrew Corcoran and steady 6-foot senior point guard Danny Keenan. They will be joined by the uber-athletic 5-10 senior guard Anthony Aquila, the starting quarterback on Shanahan’s football team, 5-11 senior guard Brian Donohue, 5-10 senior guard Mahdi Nanacasse, 6-2 senior center Michael Cleary, 6-2 junior center Luis Encarnacion, 6-foot junior guard Liam O’Sullivan, who has had a very good summer, and 5-11 senior guard Owen McGrory. Hudson Linaugh, a 6-3 junior forward, could make an impact and adds depth inside.

Dougherty promises Shanahan will look a lot different than it did last season, losing the size Griffin provided, though adding more athletic depth. It means the Eagles will be smaller and will be faster. Dougherty does a very good job of developing teams as the season progresses. The Eagles began a 20-win year 1-6 last season, losing big to Coatesville and Devon Prep in December. Shanahan wound up winning 19 of its last 23 games, giving the same Coatesville team a major scare, before bowing 67-64 in overtime at home, snapping an eight-game winning streak. The Eagles responded by winning seven of their next eight.

It's why Shanahan, whose core players are on the District 1 Class 4A championship football team, may take some time to fully come together.

“The message we have every year is about being a little more patient, because I fully back our players playing multiple sports,” Dougherty said. “These seniors all have the same mentality. They are tough, fast, and they play together. As long as we continue to get better throughout the season, and play very good competition, which we will with our nonleague schedule and in the Ches-Mont, we’re going to be good, and much better at the right time.”

Again, the Eagles could look drastically different in mid-January than in mid-December, when the football players return and find their basketball legs. It will be a matter of timing. It will be a matter of health when the true Shanahan squad surfaces.

The glaring obstacle the Eagles face is their lack of size. Griffin was a great equalizer. He enabled the Eagles to take chances defensively, knowing he was by the basket. Against Coatesville last December without Griffin, Shanahan got smoked by the Red Raiders, 63-34. With Griffin, Coatesville needed all-everything sophomore Colton Hiller, who scored 13 of the Red Raiders’ 14 points in overtime to bail them out in the Eagles’ narrow 67-64 loss.

“We do have some height, in Andrew, Luis and Hudson, but we do not have the experienced height as we did last year with Ryan and Sean,” Dougherty said. “We will rebound by committee. The mentality is we expect to win. That’s the culture I wanted to create when I came here six years ago. I will come right out and say Pope John Paul II will be the team to beat in District 1. Danny Keenan comes back totally healthy, and once everyone comes back, we will be fun to watch. I’m not saying that we will repeat (as district champions), but we are capable of repeating.

“It won’t be easy. These is a standard here.”

Dougherty and his coaching staff have devised new presses, new motion on offense and defense. The Eagles will go through Corcoran and Keenan to carry the offense. Both have played varsity for three years, with Keenan back as a three-year starting point guard. Corcoran has improved his game over the summer. He is more aggressive on the offensive end, able to drive the basket with either hand. He has emerged as a team leader. With Keenan and Aquila devoted to football, it was Corcoran who served as the team’s catalyst this summer.    

“Personally, I would like to reach first-team all-Ches-Mont,” said Corcoran, who moved from 165 pounds last season to 180. “I lifted in the offseason seriously for the first time, and I was more conscious of my diet. I definitely feel stronger. I feel like I can control the ball easier. I wasn’t pushed around this summer. We know the expectations. I respect Pope John Paul as a team. We want to make teams watch us for us. We are going to run more. I’m super excited for that. I can’t wait to play like that.”

Keenan will be pushing that tempo.

If Shanahan can go nine, 10 deep, Dougherty may be able to come in waves at opponents.

“We opened last year 1-6 and no one panicked,” Keenan said. “We have a lot of competitive seniors on this team that are dogs. The years I have been here under Coach Doc, we have built a winning culture. We have six or seven guys whose last year of playing basketball could be this season, so those guys want to win something.”

A pressing, up-tempo style can be physically demanding. Donohue feels with the depth that this team has, the Eagles can endure that style.

“We have Malvern Prep and (defending District 1 6A champ) Conestoga to start the year, that will only get us better for later in the year,” Donohue said. “As for getting our basketball legs back after football season, it will take time. We will be tested. But overall, I think our endurance will be fine. We return a lot of guys on a team that won 20 games last season. We are losing a lot of size, so we will have to use our speed and be scrappy. Everyone believes 100-percent we are capable of repeating.”

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Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on BlueSky here.