MARPLE — From the locker room, from the playing floor, from the sidelines and the athletic office, as a player, as a coach, as a mother, Chrissie Doogan has spent much of her life building and appreciating the history of girls basketball greatness at Cardinal O’Hara.
So the former Lions player and current coach knows a special player when she sees one, and she sees one in a wing player about to enter her junior season on her way to her place with the decades of Lions star players. Molly Rullo is that kind of player, soon to be in the conversation with Theresa Shank Grentz and Kristen Clement, Natasha Cloud and Maggie Doogan and by all means, her coach, who twice was an All-Delco Player of the Year.
“Yes, she is. She is that type of kid,” Doogan said of Rullo. “She would have been good back in the ’90s, with all of our teams and with all of the success we have had through the years. She could have fit in with anyone.”
Already having helped the Lions win both the Catholic League and PIAA Class 5A state championships as a freshman in 2022, the 5-11 Rullo has developed into a scoring force likely to pass her coach – who as Chrissie Donahue scored 1,446 points – and take second place on the all-time O’Hara scoring list either this season or early in the next. That would tuck her right below Clement, who scored a staggering 2,256 in her All-America career.
None of that is lost on Rullo, for that lineage of excellence is omnipresent at O’Hara, and likely will be long after she heads to Drexel in the fall of 2025.
“One of the reasons I wanted to come here so bad was the history behind everything,” she said. “Points are cool and all, but the PCL championship and just the history that people have of winning here is kind of what drew me. I just want to get another championship on the banner. That’s all I am really concerned about this year.”
The Lions return four starters – Rullo, Greta Miller, Carly Coleman and La Salle commit Joanie Quinn, the daughter of former Lions star Joanie Gallagher Quinn – back from a 23-6 team that dropped close decisions to Archbishop Wood in the Catholic League final and Archbishop Carroll in the state playoffs. Doogan is expecting help from a deep freshman class and from, among others, sophomore Megan Rullo, Molly’s sister.
“With the majority of ourselves returning, we’re excited to be back,” Molly Rullo said. “We’re angry. We’re ready. We want to win those championships.”
The returning first-team All-Delco wing will be critical to that task.
“She brings a little bit of everything,” Doogan said. “She’s the type of kid you can’t take off the court. She’s a very good shooter. She slashes. She never stops moving, so she’s very difficult to guard. And she can defend positions one through five. She is probably our best rebounder as well. So she’s just a really good presence and energy kid for us.”
Already being scoped by recruiters, Rullo drew even more attention with the Comets last summer through AAU-circuit stops in Lancaster, Louisville and Cincinnati. Saint Joseph’s was said to be heavily interested, as were Bucknell and Quinnipiac, with Doogan half-kiddingly saying she was hoping she would join Maggie Doogan, her daughter, at Richmond. But Rullo’s father Jim, the head men’s coach at Neumann University and a former Drexel assistant, and mother Michelle Michaels Rullo both played at 33rd and Market, so being a Dragons fan came naturally.
“All of the schools have great business programs, and that is something I want to do after college,” Rullo said. “And they were all great people in general. But I kept coming back to Drexel, and I just thought that was the best for me.”
Should Rullo ever gravitate toward the family business of coaching basketball, it would not be a surprise to her high school coach.
“She is not afraid to say, ‘Chrissie, I think this would work,’ which I love,” Doogan said. “She is not afraid to make suggestions. Players sometimes have the best feel for what is happening on the court, so I have no problem with that.”
To Rullo, basketball insight comes naturally. Her father is a college coach, after all, and her late grandfather, Jerry Rullo, was once a world champion as a player for the 1947 Philadelphia Warriors.
“I’m very lucky to be surrounded with a family that knows a lot about the game,” she said. “That can help me in a lot of ways, and not many people have that opportunity.”
Rullo was in the fourth grade when her grandfather died, but she absorbed the history and the passed-down basketball knowledge.
“When I was younger, I didn’t understand how important and how cool that was,” she said. “But now that I’ve gotten older, it’s really been cool to learn about.”
Basketball history is strong, in the pro game, in the Big 5 and, definitely, in the girls program at O’Hara. Appreciative of it all, Molly Rullo is ready to keep that going.
“The recognition individually is kind of cool,” she said. “But just being able to be a part of this historic program, that means a lot to me.”
Elsewhere in the Catholic League:
Defending PIAA Class 6A champion Archbishop Carroll has the pieces to make another deep run into winter.
The Patriots welcome back one of the best all-around players in the league, senior guard Brooke Wilson. The Army commit led the Patriots to the Class 6A championship, scoring all 12 of her points in the second half of a 43-37 victory over previously undefeated Cedar Cliff.
Carroll made an improbable run in the state tournament after taking third place in District 12.
Wilson shared game-high scoring honors in the state final with then-freshman guard Alexis Eberz, who will begin her second year in coach Renie Shields’ starting lineup. Olivia Nardi, Bridget Archibald, Brooke Olender and Bridget Grant are back from last season, as well.
Senior Felicity McFillin and junior Maddie McFillin are key newcomers who transfered from Harriton High.
Bonner & Prendergast aims to improve upon a 0-10 mark in the Catholic League. Riley Donahue, a senior, was the top performer last season for longtime head coach Tom Stewart and the Pandas.
