Blaize Eldridge had a sense of déjà vu, and he was OK with it.
The senior forward and his Sun Valley teammates had just wrapped up a 64-63 win over Delco Christian last week, the sixth straight win for the Vanguards. They would add a seventh on the weekend. To Eldridge, the late-season surge was exciting. But also plenty familiar.
“It happens, like, every single year,” Eldridge was saying. “We always rally in the end. I don’t know what happens, but we came together as a group and have kept pushing.”
It’s not just a feeling. January spurts have become a thing for Steve Maloney’s program. This year, it has the Vanguards in the Ches-Mont League playoffs, securely into districts and one win away from a third consecutive 15-win season at a program that not so long ago struggled for any consistency.
It has required change and progress from a veteran core that includes Eldridge, Noah Griffin and Kaiden Robinson. The Vanguards had some head-scratchers early, getting blown out by 34 points in the opener against Phoenixville and 31 by Council Rock South. Rustin beat them by 25 on Sun Valley’s home court the first time around, and they managed just a one-point win at Academy Park.
But the turnaround has been massive, with Rustin as the measuring stick. The Golden Knights, who also went 14-8 this year, went to Sun Valley and won 63-38 on Dec. 12 … then got trampled at home by Sun Valley, 60-28 on Jan. 27. Just a little 57-point swing over seven weeks.
Last year, Sun Valley rattled off eight straight wins starting in early January to reach the postseason. Its momentum was dented by a three-overtime loss to Unionville, and it bowed out of districts in the first round.
In 2022, Sun Valley ran off seven straight wins as part of a 10-2 stretch that extended into February. It fell short of its states goal, getting to playbacks of districts and finishing 15-11.
This year’s run helped the Vanguards finish the regular season with a 14-8 mark, after losing the finale to a Unionville squad that is the top seed in District 1 Class 5A. Sun Valley hosts Downingtown West in a Ches-Mont playoff game Thursday night and is the sixth seed in districts, earning a home game for the opening round.
The next challenge is to kick on and turn regular-season momentum into district wins. But either way, the three-year stretch Sun Valley has compiled has served to prove that the 2019 run to a District 1 Class 5A title and the PIAA quarterfinals was much more than just the product of one storied generation.
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Radnor was, to put it nicely, not supposed to be here. Not after last year’s 29-1 season, its District 1 title, its run to the state quarterfinals. Not after a head coach that built last year’s success and 84 percent of the points went out the door.
But somehow, Radnor is back and not all that far behind where it was last year as the Central League playoffs open.
The Raptors, who won their first league title last year, are the second seed in the playoffs. They get a bye to Saturday, where they will take on Conestoga in a league semifinal match.
Radnor won’t have to leave home in a bid to get back to states as the third seed in the District 1 Class 5A tournament. It sports an 18-3 record, the losses to Lower Merion, Conestoga and Penncrest. For a team that returned barely anyone with varsity experience, that’s a monumental achievement, and it speaks to the culture retained even after the seniors and coach Jamie Chadwin left last year.
First-year coach Tim Smallwood’s leading returning scorer was Henry Pierce, who went from 4.6 ppg to a double-figures scorer this year. Michael Savadove has embraced the vacated floor general role. And players like Elijah Sellers, who scored 27 varsity points last year, and Kessy Cox, who played in just three games, are showing what they can do.
Lower Merion appears to be a cut above as it chases a return to the Central League summit. The Aces are 21-1, the only loss to Ohio’s Stow-Monroe, and the top seed in District 1 Class 6A. Only two of their 16 Central League wins have been by single digits – by five over Garnet Valley and four over Marple Newtown, which takes on the Aces in the other tournament semifinal Saturday at 1 o’clock.
The neutral site final is set for Tuesday.
Contact Matthew De George at mdegeorge@delcotimes.com
