PHILADELPHIA – Get ready because the Blue Star Showcase is coming this weekend to the campus of Thomas Jefferson University and it’s mandatory viewing.
With the holiday schedules eased and most high school girls’ basketball teams opting for local or regional travel in early January, a full day chock full of three teams from the Blue Star Media Elite 25 rankings and several McDonald’s All Americans and burgeoning talent in the house, it’s a post-Christmas bonanza.
The Blue Star Showcase features 13 games, starting Sunday, January 7 at 9:15 a.m., and going into the early evening. The games will be played on side-by-side courts inside the Gallagher Center on the university’s East Falls campus. For your GPS: 4201 Henry Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa., 19144. Arrive early because parking is tight.
The teams hail from mostly the Philadelphia or Eastern Pennsylvania but states represented are New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. There are also teams from the District of Columbia and Ontario, Canada.
The schedule (as of Jan. 4):
Court 1, Jim Munn Memorial Bracket
9:30 a.m., Archbishop Carroll (Radnor, Pa.) vs. Ursuline Academy (Wilmington, Del.)
10:50, Imhotep Institute Charter (Philadelphia) vs. Spring-Ford (Royersford, Pa.)
12:10 p.m., McDonogh School (Owings Mills, Md.) vs. Paul VI (Haddonfield, N.J.)
1:30, St. John’s College (Washington, D.C.) vs Rutgers Prep (Somerset, N.J.)
2:50, No. 2 Long Island Lutheran (Brookville, N.Y.) vs. Fort Erie (Ontario, Canada) International Academy
4:10, No. 5 Westtown School (West Chester, Pa.) vs. Shabach Christian (Landover, Md.)
5:30, Archbishop Wood (Warminster, Pa.) vs Penn Charter (Philadelphia)
Court 2, Nancy Dougherty Memorial Bracket
9:15 a.m., Upper Dublin (Fort Washington, Pa.) vs. Academy of Notre Dame de Namur
10:35, West Catholic (Philadelphia) vs. Bethlehem (Pa.) Catholic
11:55, St. Paul VI Catholic (Chantilly, Va.) vs. Friends Central (Wynnewood, Pa.)
1:15 p.m., No. 17 Cardinal O’Hara (Springfield, Pa.) vs. Georgetown Visitation (Washington, D.C.)
2:35, Neumann-Goretti (Philadelphia) vs. Shipley School (Bryn Mawr, Pa.)
3:55, Audenried (Philadelphia) vs. Germantown Academy (Fort Washington, Pa.).
