City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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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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The word on the street this year in the Central League is ‘parity.’

After a year of three 6A programs — Conestoga, Garnet Valley and Haverford High — dominating the public schools league in the western suburbs, a number of significant graduations have the playing field looking much more even heading into the 2025-26 conference slate. 

Unfortunately, part of the reason for that parity has been due to a spate of injuries: Conestoga, Lower Merion, Radnor, Strath Haven, and more have all lost at least one girl to a torn ACL. That’s left a number of programs turning to new faces for production early in the season, and it’s the work of those role players — not just the standouts mentioned below — that will ultimately shape who emerges with a new trophy for the case in February. 

Here’s a look at how we see the league shaping up as the first week of games gets underway:

Favorites
Conestoga is under new leadership this year in former Shanahan boys coach Ken Doyle, and he’s got the league’s only current Division I commit to lean on in senior guard Ryann Jennings (Lehigh). Jennings and classmates Libby Brown (Ursinus) and Maggie Neary will be the leaders on a group that suffered a couple offseason injuries in the junior class and will have to rely on some unproven youth in the rotation to follow up on last year’s 21-9 (14-2) season. 

Garnet Valley, the defending Central League champ both regular and post-season, graduated one of its best-ever players in current Lafayette freshman Haylie Adamski, plus Jefferson freshman Kylie Mulholland, a 1,000-point scorer in her own right. But they still have Haylie’s younger sisters, junior twins Kylie and Addison Adamski, who both had significant roles as sophomores, and who now will be options 1a and 1b for the Jaguars; senior wing Katie Dwyer also brings back a good bit of experience from last year, but they’ll need some others to step up.

Radnor finished in fourth place in the regular-season a year ago with an 11-5 league record, and the Raptors return most of their rotation, led by senior guard Nyah Yao, who’ll be on the short list of preseason league MVP favorites. Junior forwards Bree Simpson and Caroline Quinn lead a deep supporting group, most of whom are back from last year’s varsity rotation as well; they will greatly miss senior point guard Anna Reger, another key piece on last year’s District 1 5A championship squad, who tore her ACL in the state soccer final. 

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Haverford sophomore Grace Maloney will have plenty of opportunity this season (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL).

Contenders
Haverford High graduated one of its all-time greats in wing Rian Dotsey, now a freshman at St. Joe’s, and one of four seniors in the starting lineup a year ago. The main returning piece for head coach Lauren Pellicane is talented sophomore guard Grace Maloney, a 5-3 combo guard with three-level scoring ability, who’s going to have the ball in her hands a lot the next three years. Maura Gilroy, a 6-1 senior post committed to Scranton, has improved by leaps and bounds over the last 18 months, and the rest of a deep sophomore class — including forward Keira Hanson and guard Taylor Gleason — will step up as well.

Lower Merion will also lean heavily on its sophomore class, with guard Natalia Kasmer and forward Ella Liberatoscioli both garnering all-league honorable mention nods a year ago. Those two, along with classmate Joanna Lu and freshman Ava Shippen-Smith, will form a young core that head coach Erin Laney can build around for the next three years, while junior guard Arryannah Glover will jump into a big role on the ball this year. 

Springfield (Delco.) has always had numerous multi-sport athletes contributing on the hardwood, but now Ky McNichol has a hoops-focused group with representation from all four classes in the varsity rotation. Seniors Lil DiTrolio and Macy Gougler, junior Abbie McFarland, and sophomores Delaney Kearney and Eva Lemieux are all back from the varsity rotation, and a deep freshman class led by wing/forward Alice Murphy has a few players ready to jump in and get some time.