Hoop Notes: Milestones, showdowns, highlight early January schedule
Just about every time Snip Esterly takes a seat on the bench he makes some kind of basketball history.
The Berks Catholic coach began the season with 769 victories, No. 7 all-time in Pennsylvania history among boys basketball coaches. He picked up win No. 776 last week when the Saints beat Trinity 67-63, topping the guy who’s No. 6 on PA’s all-time list, Larry Kostelac.
Saturday, Esterly will once again go head-to-head again Abington Heights’ Ken Bianchi, who is No. 4 on the all-time list with 852 wins. The Comets are off to a 7-0 start; the Saints are 8-0.
Esterly, in his 12th season with the Saints and 34th overall as a head coach, enters Tuesday’s game against Pottsville with a 777-212 record. He’ll coach his 1,000th game later this month (barring postponements).
That win total figures to grow considerably this season. The Saints are 8-0 for just the second time in their 12-year history and are the early favorite to win another District 3 Class 4A championship. Esterly could end up close to 800 by season’s end.
It’ll be tough to move a whole lot higher on Pennsylvania’s all-time wins list: Five of the six coaches ahead of him are still active, including Loyalsock’s Ron Insinger, who earned win No. 1,012 last month.
Insinger ranks No. 8 among active coaches in the nation, according to maxpreps.com.
Holy Ghost Prep’s Tony Chapman, who began the season with 914 wins, was No. 13 in the nation. Elk County Catholic’s Aaron Straub, who opened the season with 912 wins, was No. 15. Bianchi ranked No. 25.
Gary McKnight of Mater Dei High School, in Santa Ana, Ca., began the year with 1,214 victories, tops in the nation according to maxpreps.com.
Robert Hughes of Dunbar High in Fort Worth Texas, owns the national record with 1,333 wins. Morgan Wooten of Dematha Catholic, in Hyattsville, Md., is second with 1,274.
Esterly coached 22 seasons at Central Catholic, winning 542 games, before the school closed.
Bulldogs keep winning even without Cam
After a big summer Wilson was expected to be a top contender in District 3 Class 6A, but opening 7-1 without its best player has been noteworthy.
Cam Jones, an all-division pick and the Bulldogs’ leading scorer as a junior, hasn’t played yet because of a groin injury suffered in Wilson’s final football game, a District 3 playoff loss at Harrisburg Nov. 12.
He likely remains about a week away from returning, according to Wilson coach Matt Coldren.
Even without him the Bulldogs knocked off Central York (6-3) and Hempfield (7-2) last week to win the Hempfield Holiday Tournament. Central and Hempfield were preseason favorites in their respective leagues.
Wilson also owns wins against Schuylkill League favorite Pottsville (6-3) and Lancaster-Lebanon League Section 1 challenger McCaskey (5-4).
Its lone loss came to Warwick, in overtime, a game the Warriors extended with a tip-in in the final seconds of regulation.
Wilson is ranked No. 3 in the District 3 Class 6A power ratings, behind Reading High and Cumberland Valley.
The Bulldogs have succeeded because of their defense — always a staple in West Lawn — and scoring balance. The emergence of Aidan Melograna has been a huge key. He was a role player last season, when he led the team in 3-pointers off the bench. He’s expanded his overall game and leads the team in scoring at 15.1 per game.
The Bulldogs will be tested this week, starting Tuesday at Muhlenberg (6-3), then at home Thursday against Reading High (9-1) and Saturday afternoon against Spring-Ford (7-1).
Early showdown
Fleetwood puts one of the best starts in program history on the line Tuesday night at Oley Valley in a meeting of preseason favorites in Divisions III and IV, respectively.
The Tigers are 8-0, their best start in at least 40 seasons. They’re winning their games by an average of 25.7 points; their closest game was a 59-44 win at Schuylkill Valley in their Berks III opener.
The Lynx are off to a 6-2 start and beat Brandywine Heights 63-51 in their league opener.
Tuesday’s meeting will see Fleetwood’s Jake Karnish square off against cousins Ben and Nick DeBalko of Oley Valley. Ben is Oley’s No. 2 scorer at 11.3 points per game; Jake is Berks’ top scorer at 24.9 per game.
The Lynx have played without injured Chase Reifsnyder, their top returning starter from last season.
Next up
Josiah Jordan is 55 points away from becoming the first Berks Catholic player in four years to reach 1,000 points.
Jordan, an All-Berks pick as a junior, has 945 points heading into Tuesday’s game against Pottsville at Wolf Gymnasium. The unbeaten Saints play Daniel Boone at home Thursday and at Abington Heights Saturday.
The Saints have had seven 1,000-point scorers play for them. Only four — Nana Foulland, Casey Jack, Connor Jack and Luis Garcia — have scored 1,000 exclusively for Berks Catholic.
Jordan, who’s averaging a team-leading 16.6 points per game, should eventually pass Casey Jack (1,118) to become the program’s all-time scoring leader.
Last month Jordan was named to the Pennsylvania Football Writers’ Class 3A All-State team.
Club 2000
The Chester Clippers will soon be the second Pennsylvania boys basketball program with 2,000 wins.
The Clippers enter Tuesday’s game against Overbrook needing three wins to join Reading High on the exclusive list.
The Red Knights became the first in 2013, when they beat Gov. Mifflin 72-62 at the Geigle. A freshman by the name of Lonnie Walker IV got his first start in that game and scored 19 points.