Forget Giant Center, Just Call It Palestra West: Philadelphia Catholic League Remains Both The Irresistible Force And The Immovable Object (State Of The State 2025 Column)
Written by: Andy Herr on March 31, 2025
Before we start, let’s first lay out an initial ground rule.
First and foremost, this piece is not intended to be one that addresses the overarching elephant sitting in the room that comes up this time of year – public or private. Yes, private schools won all six of the boys’ state finals this weekend that were contested at Hershey. That much is true. But not all are created equal.
For example, yes, Linville Hill Christian is by definition a private school. However, if you want to look at the talent pool which they could in theory “recruit” from, the only thing that part of Pennsylvania is probably a true hotbed for is building sheds and gazebos. Maybe making a mean whoopie pie even. But most certainly not an area exactly ripe and overly notorious when it comes to the type of pure skill being able to go one-on-one against a fullcourt press before splashing in a smooth pullup jumper, so have at it.
Instead, in terms of pure basketball prowess seen at the statewide level in Pennsylvania by virtue of the way in which the current rules and regs are laid out, there is not much of a counterargument. The Philadelphia Catholic League is so far out in front of everyone else that they may soon start lapping the field. That’s if they haven’t already.
67%. That’s rounding up to account for the number of PCL state champions accrued on the boys’ side of the ledger that went home with state crowns in 2025. Even more remarkably, there’s probably been far better iterations of the Catholic League seen making their way to Hershey for the grand finale in recent memory.
The West Catholic Burrs? They came into their final game of the season all of two games above .500 on the year, 15-13, before taking on a supremely talented South Allegheny squad by way of the WPIAL. That’s a 27-3 Gladiators’ outfit mind you, before West Catholic’s speed, skill, size, insert other adjective of the like here, eventually imposed their will on a stellar foe before walking away with their second state title in three years by virtue of a 60-51 decision in the 3A affair on Saturday afternoon.
Granted, while most with an inkling of intelligence figured that West Catholic’s record was nothing if not deceiving, it demonstrates the sheer breadth and depth of the Catholic League for all to see. Aside from running absolutely magnificent stuff drawn up offensively by South Allegheny head coach Tony DiCenzo throughout the entire game, the Gladiators seemed as if they were the ones from the PCL in terms of the eye test given their impressive length and size across the board against the Burrs. Yet even that, along with a 17-5 lead at the end of the first quarter, wouldn’t be enough in the long run against one of the fastest rising young coaches in the state, Miguel Bocachica, and his band of Burrs come the final buzzer.
In 5A, it was largely the same story.
The name Neumann-Goretti alone is probably good enough to account for a couple of points up on the scoreboard prior to tip just in terms of recognition if we’re being totally honest. But even for the Saints, coming into finals weekend this season with double digit losses next to their name at 18-11 overall, if ever there seemed to be a time for “getting” arguably the franchise with the most cache in the entire state, much less this year in what was their first time competing inside the 5A ranks after continuously getting bumped up again and again by virtue of prior success, it figured to be right now.
Except it wasn’t. Even when making them play in anything but a neutral environment.
On Friday night, the Saints drew the Hershey Trojans in the boys’ 5A tilt. Yes, Hershey as in the one that needed to make a left turn, a left turn, a right turn, a left turn, and a final left turn from up the road on their school’s campus before entering the parking lot, getting off the bus, and walking into the Giant Center.
And this wasn’t a run of the mill Hershey Trojans’ crew that somehow stumbled their way into the state final either.
No, this was a historically great Trojans’ club, certainly the best in a half century as the record books will show, if not the best all-time. And even that, along with the turning the Giant Center into an orange-clad cauldron with their most ardent of supporters, would not be enough to withstand the Philly Catholic League behemoth come the end of 32 minutes with N-G head man Carl Arrigale and his Saints conducting business as usual, this time winning their 10th state title all-time, following their 85-71 triumph over the hometown squad in an environment that was somewhere around the 90-to-10 differential in terms of crowd support. And frankly that might even be way too generous.
But in 6A, that’s where the rubber met the road in terms of this overarching discussion.
Having the advantage of sitting along press row, it’s striking just how different the 6A fellas look when right in front of you. On Saturday night in the finale of finales, that was even more evident.
When both Father Judge and Roman Catholic made it out of their respective sides of the 6A state bracket, both PCL schools of course, the idea of an overall jam-packed Giant Center crowd was at best a wishful fallacy. Granted, while numbers didn’t seem overly terrible in that department once everyone filed in perhaps, it was nonetheless a game played in a largely sterile and emotionless vacuum in terms of crowd support and overall energy. There however, when it’s just pure basketball being played without much in the wide of sideshows, it was striking just how different the personnel on both the Cahillites’ and Crusaders’ rosters was compared to the rest of the weekend when it’s just unvarnished hooping in going back and forth against one another.
In short, this was elite skill at a glaring level in which it seemed hard for most other teams to try and contend with. Case in point, Roman Catholic was the same team which dispatched last year’s state champion, Central York, by half a hundred in a 96-46 decision back in the second round of the tourney.
Between the traditional Philly guard play, the big bodies that looked like they required all of a couple days (or hours) in a college weight room before they themselves could be playing in the ongoing NCAA tournament, and just the elite shot-making littered all over the floor, it was a basketball version of nirvana if you’re a purist of the game itself. In fact, one such coach texted during the game and essentially said to the effect, “It’s wild to see just how the far the gap between all of us and them truly is.” And this isn’t the head man in charge of some also-ran outfit. This is one built on rock-solid footing that has numbers newly stitched on banners hanging in the gym. Not ones that have been collecting dust.
Ironically though, maybe the team that best gives credence to this whole notion is one that you probably haven’t heard of. Or maybe one that you have forgotten about considering they were knocked out in the first round back at the beginning of the month.
In the 3A bracket, Landsale Catholic was awarded a spot into the field and drew a date with Lancaster Mennonite. But there’s more to the Crusaders’ story than what originally meets the eye here.
They too came into the state tournament with a losing record. In fact, they came in six games below water in owning an 8-14 mark. However, a baker’s dozen of those defeats came at the hands of their fellow Philly Catholic League brethren, making Lansdale Catholic as the lone Catholic League team that went winless in the league this season. Not only that, but the Crusaders went absent of winning a game from December 28th until February 26th, a win they needed to have against Overbrook in the waning days of February in order to get that final District 12 bid into the state tournament, along with the undeniable awkwardness of not even playing a game period for over two and a half weeks inside the month of February while they awaited their long-term fate. Nevertheless, the Crusaders’ record outside of the powerful PCL was nothing to sneeze at considering they were able to take down the likes of Ridley, Hatboro-Horsham, Simon Gratz, and Upper Merion to name just a few. Schools that are far, far larger by comparison when it comes to overall enrollment figures.
Speaking on Lancaster Mennonite, while the Blazers are bubbling right up to the precipice of being considered a small-school juggernaut in their neighborhood of south/central PA considering their now five consecutive ventures into the quarterfinal round of the state tournament across both 2A and 3A, wining the 2A state title in 2023, their name on a bracket line still probably lacks the overwhelming fear factor to foes residing outside of their backyard to that of a statewide audience whether rightly or wrongly.
All that is to say, was Lancaster Mennonite the better team on that Saturday when they lined up against Lansdale Catholic on the afternoon of March 8th on Mennonite’s campus for the opening round of states? Yes. Was it so tremendously obvious and in such a demonstrable manner that made it questionable as to why this game was even being played in the first place? Not quite. If you came in from Mars, the difference in separation between an 8-14 Lansdale Catholic team and a 20-3 District 3 runner-up in that of Lancaster Mennonite wasn’t nearly so stark as one may have originally thought. And that’s whether you want to parachute in from either the planet of Mars or the town on the western side of the state all the same.
Now, considering that Lansdale Catholic has a brand new and energetic young head coach in Torre Harrison, along with an incredibly young and talented roster to boot, Lansdale Catholic may prove themselves to be the latest up-and-comer in the form of a Philly Catholic League thoroughbred to inflict damage upon the state tournament sooner rather than later.
And that’s not for nothing either.
Remember Conwell-Egan? Aliquippa certainly does seeing as how the Eagles knocked off the Quips for the 2015 AA state title. This year though, even with a state championship trophy sitting in their trophy case won within the span of the last decade, Conwell-Egan finished just a smidge above winless Lansdale Catholic when it came to the overall Philadelphia Catholic League standings.
Keeping that in mind, with Father Judge now winning their first state title courtesy of their win over Roman on Saturday night, seven different member institutions on the boys’ side of the 14-team Philadelphia Catholic League have now won a state basketball title inside the span of the last ten years. Slide the scale downward to that of even making it to the state championship game period, and you wind up with nine of the assembled 14.
Is it impossible for other teams, private or public alike, to knock off this venerable beast moving forward? It’s been done before.
Reading High did it on the boys’ side twice in 2021 and 2023 respectively in knocking off Archbishop Wood and Roman Catholic to claim 6A supremacy. Shoot, even South Fayette showed it can be accomplished on Saturday night as the Lions were able to stop Wood’s quest for a five-peat on the girls’ side of the 5A ledger.
But as was proven over the course of this weekend, it requires a full 32-minute effort from tip to final gun with essentially zero margin for error. And that’s just to simply get you out of the starting blocks.
Even a team like Hershey, one that probably floated into the locker room for the halftime respite rather than actually running in following a 3-ball sunk just prior to the second quarter horn by way of James Campbell IV, capping off a blistering 8-13 shooting display from beyond the arc from the Trojans as a collective unit during the first half on Friday night while en route to what was a 44-37 Hershey lead over Neumann-Goretti at the break, that too couldn’t withstand a final 16-minute Saints’ barrage inside the second half as it turned out.
So, is the hill really so mammoth and so steep for others to try and climb as it may outwardly appear to where beating a Philly Catholic League team is worthy of celebrating like you won a state championship? That’s up for you to decide. Regardless, all roads to Hershey go through Philadelphia at some point in time.
They may come from the City of Brotherly Love. But until proven otherwise, the Philadelphia Catholic League’s supremacy over the rest of the state certainly seems to be grandfathered in.
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