Note: In the week ahead, the Mercury will finish its preview of all 12 Pioneer Athletic Conference girls basketball programs now that the 2025-26 season has arrived. Next up is Pottsgrove, which won nine games last year with the youngest roster in the league.
While Pottsgrove came up just short in its quest for a postseason berth last winter, the Falcons arguably overachieved more than any other program in the PAC.
The team led the league in minutes played for underclassmen, with 12 of its 15 players either freshmen or sophomores. The Falcons did have a pair of senior captains in Ava Leaman and Aleah Rockmore to lead the youth movement, but virtually everyone else was tossed into the deep end without a life preserver and told to sink or swim.
The Falcons mostly kicked their way to the surface, finishing the season with a 9-13 overall record, including a 7-3 mark against PAC Frontier opponents. Pottsgrove was a win or two away from making it to the league playoffs and finished the season as the 14th-ranked team in Class 5A, with the top 12 teams earning invites to the district tournament.
Now, with everybody back in the fold but Leaman and Rockmore, this iteration of the Falcons is optimistic the lessons learned from a year ago will translate into the program’s first winning season since the 2020-21 campaign.
“Last year they were very young but learned quickly,” head coach Matt Morton said. “This year having a year under our belt at the varsity level, I think they are that much more prepared to take on the teams in the PAC and around the district. It’s exciting to get them all back together to build upon what we started last year.”
The Falcons are off to a 1-2 start to the 2025-26 season, losing their opener at Marple Newtown before splitting a pair of games in last weekend’s Pottsgrove Tip-Off Tournament, beating Brandywine Heights by 22 and dropping a tight 2-point championship game to Upper Darby. Against Brandywine Heights, the Falcons grabbed 40-plus rebounds and forced 24 turnovers, so when things are firing on all cylinders, the team can score, play defense and box out.
The rotation includes a trio of talented forwards in 5-10 junior Vivian Kyler, 5-10 sophomore Kendra Ivory and 5-9 sophomore Layla Jelbaoui. Kyler produced a 12-point, 10-rebound effort against Brandywine Heights and Ivory grabbed double-digit boards twice in the season’s first three games.
In the backcourt, sophomore point guard Thelia Dellaquilla and sophomore shooting guard Nyla’h Stubbs have already proven to be capable two-way players, and freshman guard Joz’lyn Cillio scored eight points in the team’s lone win on Friday. Junior 5-8 wing Malak Ahmed and 5-9 freshman Emily Hendrzak have also received minutes in the season’s early going.
It’s an intriguing mix in a seemingly wide-open PAC, and with only one senior and four juniors on the current roster, this group has more time than most to build and continue on its upward trajectory.
“It was definitely a wake-up call,” Ivory said of being thrown into the fire a year ago. “It was not easy getting put out there against juniors and seniors who know the game and have played a lot more games, but I think we picked it up quickly. We had to step up, and I was very proud of my team and myself.”
“We stepped up and made the freshmen feel more comfortable so that they would play better,” added Kyler, a virtual elder statesman as a sophomore last season. “This year we want to focus on working hard, getting serious and making it to districts.”
Pope John Paul II and Upper Merion each finished ahead of Pottsgrove in the Frontier Division last season and both programs bring back multiple key pieces, while Pottstown and Upper Perkiomen are off to strong starts and both look much improved out of the gate. So, while emerging at the top of the pile will be anything but easy, Pottsgrove does have the pieces in place to claim a seat at the postseason table if the youthful roster continues developing at an ahead-of-schedule pace.
“Last year was mentally tough, but you just have to get through it,” Ahmed said. “Our experience was pretty good – we built culture, became closer, became a family. I hope to do that again with the rest of our younger girls and keep developing a good work ethic even when the days are hard.”
Morton thinks two of Pottsgrove’s biggest attributes are the team’s versatility and ability to play together. The Falcons have a good mix of size, shooting, ball handling, with the group’s individual strengths bringing out the best in the collective as a whole.
“They’re all very complementary players,” Morton said. “We work well together. When Kendra is playing well inside it makes it a little easier for the guards to get the ball up the court and easier to get our shooters going. When Viv is in there playing great defense, banging rebounds and putting the ball back in (the hoop), it tightens up the inside and opens up the outside.
“One of our strong suits is that we are very unselfish – sometimes too unselfish. We need to be a little more selfish in taking the ball and taking the shot.”
Even after a nine-win season that exceeded expectations a year ago, the Falcons still don’t feel as if the rest of the league takes them seriously enough. Who knows, maybe that means this group can sneak up on the rest of the PAC once more, this time with league and district playoff berths as the ultimate prize?
“Me and the team are very locked in and ready for the season,” Ivory said. “We are definitely still very young, so maybe a lot of people look down on Pottsgrove. One of our goals is to put the work in and prove everyone wrong. This year, I think we’re ready for that.”
