District 1 Class 5A boys basketball: Mueller-charged momentum sends Radnor past SV

RADNOR — The dunk was almost the least of it from Cooper Mueller, even before he took flight from the floor at Radnor High School Wednesday night.

Countless times this season, the junior guard has jumped a passing lane or picked a pocket, turning those loose balls into easy baskets. When he jarred the ball loose in the second quarter against Sun Valley, he was well on his way to another momentum-injecting passage of play, no matter how he elected to finish it at the other end.

The dunk, and the resultant surge of electricity through the Radnor bench, was just a bonus; an extra exclamation point. Mueller’s defense keyed an early rout by the Raptors, dashing past the No. 8 Vanguards, 53-28, to book a place in the District 1 Class 5A semifinals and a first states berth for Radnor since 2006.

“That’s a great momentum shifter,” wing Charlie Thornton said. “He does it all the time in practice and then in the game he finger rolls it. I was like, Coop, just dunk it. And he finally did today. It was great.”

Top-seeded Radnor (21-3) will host No. 4 Upper Moreland in a semifinal Saturday afternoon at 3.

Mueller, as befits the complementary role he plays in the Radnor side, downplayed the impact his highlight played.

“We often have momentum players,” he said. “Charlie Thornton is normally our momentum play guy. Or Jackson Hicke hitting a deep 3. But we like to feed off our own energy. I wouldn’t say that was huge for us, but we like to live off those plays.”

Either way, the steal was as emblematic of Radnor’s dominance as the slam. Radnor forced 13 turnovers via 11 steals. The Raptors also blocked six shots, Cliff Smith and Mueller supplying two each, one of Mueller’s sounding more at home finishing a swing on a volleyball court.

By halftime, Mueller had 10 points. So did Sun Valley.

“Cooper’s energy on defense, his motor on defense, it’s incredible,” Thornton said. “He’s always up in someone’s face, no matter who it is. He’s going to get to those passes, and for him to finish it like he did today, that was big.”

Radnor spread the scoring around. All five starters scored in the first quarter, after which the Raptors led 19-6. They didn’t slow the pace offensively until the third quarter, by which point their lead had stretched to 41-12.

Given a nine-day layoff since a loss to Lower Merion in the Central League final, a fast start was paramount. Radnor delivered crisp ball movement (Danny Rosenblum had three first-quarter assists). and 3-pointers by Pierce Justice and Thornton forced Sun Valley out of its 3-2 zone.

“Obviously we had a lot of time off, which is good in some regard,” Mueller said. “We get time to rest and go through our stuff. But you can come out and you see some other teams that come out a little slow when they have a long break. We knew we had to get rid of that and come out hard tonight, which we did.”

Mueller led the way with 11 points. Jackson Hicke had 10 points and eight rebounds. Thronton and Justice scored eight each, and Rosenblum and Michael Savadove contributed six points apiece.

The depth for Sun Valley (15-10) was not so benevolent: Five players scored in the first half, all two points each. Chris Kwaidah was saddled with early foul trouble and never got into a rhythm. Eight straight empty trips to end the first quarter dug a hole the Vanguards wouldn’t escape.

“It’s a young group,” coach Steve Maloney said. “Only one of them has really been in a district quarterfinal game. Packed gym, we just tried to tell them as coaches to calm down and find solutions for them. I don’t think we started that bad, but it got away from us.”

Kwaidah finished with 10 points. Todd Harper added six. But the Vangauards were 1-7 from the line and 1-for-13 from 3-point range. They still have a chance at states, hosting No. 12 Chichester Saturday. The winner of that game grabs one of the six states berths. Chichester beat Sun Valley on an overtime buzzer-beater, 65-64, in Aston on Jan. 6.

For Radnor, the states trip berth fulfills a promise of which they were recently reminded. Thornton and Rosenblum contributed as freshmen to the 2019-20 team, which started 8-0 but finished 15-11 and lost in the District 1 playbacks. When Radnor hit the same milestone to start this season, on the way to wins in its first 13, the current players got a group text from the leading scorer in 2020, Jack D’Entremont.

The junior at Washington & Lee reminded them that their work wasn’t done. Even as they bask in this achievement, the junior core still isn’t satisfied.

“He just let us know, it doesn’t mean anything. We did the same thing freshman year,” Thornton said. “… For us to be able to come together as a group and accomplish that goal is special. But we have more work to do in districts.”