City of Basketball Love

By David Comer
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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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Mickey McDaniel has done just about everything as he enters his 13th season as the Spring-Ford girls’ basketball coach. 

He has coached multiple Division I players, including current WNBA standout Lucy Olsen, won multiple Pioneer Athletic Conference championships, captured a District I title in 2021 and reached the PIAA championship game in 2014, 2021 and 2024. But he has never entered a season with a team as young and inexperienced as this year’s squad.

“That’s exciting, though,” McDaniel said. “The girls are working hard. They have a lot of enthusiasm. Right now, it’s an open book for us. We’re a young team, and we’re still finding our way in that respect. We have a lot of teaching to do. We have some veterans, but not the experience we’ve had in the past.”

The Rams graduated six players from last year’s team, including four starters and two bench players, that finished 20-10 and one victory shy of qualifying for the PIAA playoffs. 

McDaniel is not used to missing the PIAA playoffs.

“It was tough because that is our standard,” he said. “Our standard has been qualifying for the state playoffs, and we fell short of that, and that was tough. For me, it was tough because I want to see girls continue that tradition. We did not get to that last step. What you have to do is sit back, reflect and ask what you can do differently as coaches and players.”

Among those players lost to graduation from last year are wing Kareena Preuss, who averaged 12 points per game last season and was also a starter on Spring-Ford’s 2024 state finalist team, and guard Devon Chamberlain, who is now playing for Alvernia University.

McDaniel is looking forward to molding this young group and guiding the Rams back to the PIAA playoffs. 

Leading the way will be the lone returning starter in junior Emma Kaercher, a 5-foot-5 point guard who led last year’s team in minutes played (24.6 per game) and assists (3.5 per game) while finishing second on the team in rebounds (4.6). She also averaged 5.6 points per game.

“We’re expecting her to really take over the role as a leader and obviously control our team defensively and offensively and increase her statistical production,” McDaniel said. “’She’s a tough, tough kid. She has a nose for the ball.”

Kaercher welcomes the expanded role.

“I think from last year to this year my role has definitely increased,” she said. “I think I have to become a bigger leader, and I think I have. I have to lead by example but make sure I hold the team accountable. I have to make sure I play better because last year I wasn’t as aggressive offensively. I have to attack and create more this year.”

At only 5-foot-5, Kaercher, who is also a goalie on the lacrosse team, enjoys rebounding.

“I definitely have a knack for the ball,” she said. “I think that helps us as a team if I can get the rebound and just push the ball right away. That means I don’t have to come back and get the ball. That’s definitely hard for teams to defend.”

Kaercher, who is from an athletic family - her father played Division III football and her mother played Division III field hockey and lacrosse - would like to first win the PAC and then go from there.

“I’m just focused on winning,” she said. “That’s really all I care about. We have long-term and short-term goals. A long-term goal is winning the PAC, and a short-term goal is winning every possession. The long-term goals are not accomplished if we don’t accomplish the short-term goals.”

In addition to Kaercher, two other players who saw significant minutes off the bench last season return for the Rams.

One of those players is Miley Maloney, a 5-foot-9 junior, averaged 17.1 minutes and 7.7 points per game last season. 

“We are looking for her to score inside and to the mid-range and defend on the interior,” McDaniel said. “We’re going to need her to rebound offensively and defensively.”

The other player is 5-foot-8 sophomore Brynn Stiles. Last season, she averaged 14.6 minutes and 2.7 points per game as a freshman.

“Brynn has a very high basketball IQ and is a great team player,” McDaniel said. “We look for her to score more, but she is so unselfish. Sometimes she becomes pass-first and shoot-second. Sometimes, we need her to be shoot-first. She is a very good shooter.”

McDaniel said that 5-foot-10 junior Ciara Finney and 5-foot-7 junior Ciena Platt both dressed for varsity last season and will compete for minutes this season. McDaniel added that 5-foot-9 junior Lilah Brady and a trio of promising freshmen - 5-foot-5 Jordan Bivens-Turner, 5-foot-9 Teagan Finney and 5-foot-9 Renee Lewis - are in the mix for playing time.

“Everyone is fighting for varsity minutes,” McDaniel said.

McDaniel, who was the long-time athletic director at Spring-Ford, is entering his 40th season coaching at the school. He spent many years as an assistant coach with the boys’ and girls’ teams before becoming the head coach of the girls’ team for the 2013-14 season. During that time, he has developed a simple philosophy that has proven to be successful.

“Our daily goal at Spring-Ford is that every player gets better by 1% each day,” he said. “If every player gets better by 1% each day, the team gets better by 18%. We want to be playing our best basketball at the end of the season. That’s our goal. The byproduct of that goal is the opportunity to advance in the playoffs.”

McDaniel knows that with such a young and inexperienced team and no player taller than 5-foot-9, this year will be a challenge - but a challenge he is excited about.

“We’re small,” he said. “We’re a small team.”

So the Rams will play positionless basketball and press and run.

“Our anticipation and our expectation is to play pressure defense and get out and run,” he said.  “We’re traditionally a pressing team. Our identity is that we’ve been a pressing team. Some years we’ve not pressed as much. Our plan is to go back to what our identity has been most of my coaching career.”

As for his team’s offense, McDaniel said: “We have to find a way to be creative on offense and create easy baskets and easy looks.”

The Rams will play their traditional difficult schedule, including games against Altoona, Norwin, Lower Merion and in the Tampa Bay Christmas Invitational over the holidays and The GOAT Challenge at Bethlehem Catholic - in addition to the always challenging PAC slate.

“We never want it to be an easy schedule,” McDaniel said. “The only way to get better is to play the best. These girls over all these years have built a standard. We’re not going to lower our standard. The girls have to rise to that standard.”

McDaniel said that he should have a better idea of where this team is headed after the first 10 games of the season. During that time, he hopes to develop a rotation and begin to build depth that he hopes will carry the team back to its familiar spot in the PIAA playoffs - but that isn’t the only measure of success.

“A successful year is one that we played as hard as we could and competed to the best of our ability, and if we do those things then the w’s and potential championships will take care of themselves,” he said. “Sometimes the outside world judges us too much on wins and the trophies we raise, but when the girls leave the program if they are better off for it and become a positive impact in this world of ours than we’ve succeeded. 

‘I’ve learned in my latter years of coaching that you need to focus on the little things. If we are able to take those steps and move our program along and execute on a high level on the offensive and defensive ends and do all those things, then that’s when I feel we’ve reached the pinnacle, and everything else will be icing on the cake.”