City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)

––

(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.)

~~~

They remember. How could they forget? It was highly unusual, especially at home, but there was a line of sullen players in black-and-orange uniforms trotting off to the side locker room after Chester’s surprising 76-68 upset loss to Downingtown West in the first round of last season’s PIAA District 1 Class 6A playoffs.

The biting setback ended the Clippers’ season in which they went 15-8 overall, although they continued their Del-Val League winning streak to 16-straight games, winning the league title for the seventh time in the last eight years, including the last two.

Two starters return for Clippers’ coach Keith Taylor, who enters his ninth season and 33rd overall with the program, 6-foot-2 senior guard Paul Lindsay II and 6-3 senior guard Nyrell Pray. The rest of the team is comprised of mostly sophomores, beginning with 6-3 sophomore guard Ramee Davis Jr., 5-9 sophomore guard Jay’son Demby, 6-foot sophomore guard Zahir Clayton, 5-10 sophomore guard Jasiyn Mallory-Granberry, 6-2 sophomore guard Kymir Brown and 6-5 senior forward Daron Bostick. Darius Dalie, a 6-1 senior guard, transferred in from Chichester, and adds depth.

The Clippers had the smallest team in program history last season. This group may be collectively smaller, considering Chester lost 6-foot-8, 330-pound senior center Shemaj Henry, a Syracuse football commit who aims to leave for college in January, and twins Jalen and Daron Harris, who decided to commit their time to football.

“For the sophomores, that was like a catch-up year for us last season,” Demby said. “We have been playing with each other since we were six. It wasn’t easy seeing the seniors leave the court the way they did. We will be small again. We will be young. We are all stronger.”  

And as the saying goes, Chester is still Chester.

The big difference this season is that the Clippers will be facing a challenge to threepeat as Del-Val League champions by archrival Penn Wood, which has not won a Del-Val title since 2017 and features a large, formidable front of 6-foot-7 two-year starting senior forward Malik Edwards, 6-foot-6 senior forward Nafi Davis, and 6-3 junior forward Amari Anderson.

“It doesn’t matter, Chester is still Chester, and those kids know how to win,” Penn Wood head coach Matt Lindeman said.

Add on the additional motivation of being ousted in the first round of districts and the Clippers are still the team to beat in the Del-Val.

“Last year we had kids playing big, who were really small,” Taylor said. “We just didn’t have the size to compete with teams like Downingtown West and that hurt us. We will be young. We will probably have five sophomores in our top-eight rotation. We want to improve what we did last year. We had a bunch of freshmen out there, not really knowing what they were doing. They have a year of experience. With Lindsay and Pray, we have a nice mix of youth and experience. I am excited about this team. We can go deeper.”

That also means going where the vaunted Chester press will lead the Clippers. Their vice-grip, full-court defense can void the size difference Chester will probably face each game. The Clippers’ ability to force turnovers into instant offense is still vital to Chester basketball.

Another budding piece will be the continued growth of Davis. He is a rising star. Over the summer, he honed his offensive game by improving his handle, adding a spot-up game to go with his strong ability to finish at the rim, and he has become a more consistent three-point shooter. As a freshman, Taylor cut him no breaks. Davis was thrown immediately into the deep end, and he came through. For example, he scored eight of his game-high 15 points in the fourth quarter going six-for-six from the line in Chester’s 54-46 victory at Penn Wood last February.

“The guys are excited for the season start and Ramee has always been ‘the man’ since he was coming up in the Biddy League,” Taylor said. “Ramee was always the tallest kid, so he had to do everything, rebound, bring the ball up, score inside, score outside. We will depend on him to do some of the same things here, but we will use him on the wing.

“Penn Wood will be okay. We saw them this summer. They will be big. One of our main goals every year is winning the state championship, and that starts with winning the Del-Val League. The advantage we have is that there are a bunch of young kids who are used to winning.”

Davis has grown an inch and has gained 10 pounds. He had to play down low in the playoff loss to Downingtown West.

“I wanted to get stronger this offseason because I’ll be asked to play down low again this year,” Davis said. “I know I have a bigger role. I have to trust my teammates, and make sure that my teammates can trust me, too. The district loss was hard to take. We had different things that hurt us. Bad shots. Bad rebounding. We could have shared the ball more. We learned from that. Our energy at practice is greater. Everyone has grown. We’ll share the ball, it’s what we did this summer.”

Lindsay will be the unquestioned leader of the team. He feels another Clippers’ strength will be everyone knowing their roles.

“We have great sophomores, and we will be really young, but those guys have played with each other for years and have always been good,” Lindsay said. “Everyone is ready to go. I put on 15 pounds since last year and grew a few inches. I feel different on the court. Before, I used to be nervous playing through contact. Now, I feel a lot more confident going to the basket playing off two (feet). Teams will see a whole different version of me. I put the work in over the summer and I it see paying off. I can see us making a run in the playoffs. We can’t wait for this season to begin.”

~~~

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.