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Marauders will return strong team

Mirror photo by Gary M. Baranec The Marauders will have a lot of talent back from this year’s Class 2A state runner-up suad.

HERSHEY — When Bishop Guilfoyle Catholic lost four starters to graduation last season, a lot of people lowered their expectations for the Marauders.

Even though BG blitzed its way through the District 6 Class 2A playoffs, there were still doubters when it came to playing state playoff powers Farrell and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

Now, with leader Luke Ruggery off to Saint Francis, a lot of people may make the same mistake, but the Marauders remain confident they’ll pick up right where they left off.

“We’re going to have to replace his leadership and obviously his abilities,” Bishop Guilfoyle coach Chris Drenning said. “We’ll get together, and we’ll talk. They made a really big jump from last year to this year. We have some guys on our bench that have the chance to be key contributors if they dedicate themselves.”

No one made a bigger jump, perhaps in the entire district, than Jessiah Witherspoon. The junior guard was Bishop Guilfoyle’s leading scorer with 19 points in the 54-52 loss to Math, Civics & Sciences in the PIAA Class 2A final Friday and has consistently made highlight-reel defensive plays throughout the playoffs.

“He’s finding out how good he is,” Drenning said. “I don’t think he understands how good he is. I coach him hard, because I love him. He’s gotten better about being coached. He’s found out he’s a pretty good player, but that he can still improve. I’m hoping he takes another big step for us next season.”

Witherspoon credits the team’s work ethic.

“As a whole team, we’ve gotten a lot better together,” Witherspoon said. “The individual and team workouts we’ve put in, it’s been amazing. We’ve been getting better every game. Coach always tells us to work on our craft every day and take practice seriously. That’s what we did, and it got us here.”

Ruggery said he knows he’s leaving the team in good shape and pointed out the improvement his fellow starters made throughout the year.

“We weren’t making some of these plays at the start of the year,” Ruggery said. “Michael (Montecalvo) took two charges in the fourth quarter that were absolutely huge for us. I don’t know if he would have done that at the start of the year playing a team like that.”

The Marauders should be the favorite in District 6 again next year, but now their goals are higher.

“We know what we can do as a team, and we know that we can make it back here and be in the same situation,” Witherspoon said. “We know we can do the same thing. We just need to finish it.”

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