Bill Coleman (above) had been the head coach at Hatboro-Horsham the last two years. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

The Royals finished 13-12 overall and 7-6 in the Central League last year.  Rising 6-foot senior guard Tahli Murray, an all-Central selection, returns with 6-5 rising senior forward Marlon Boreland. 

“There are too many assistant coaches and too many kids to thank, but it’s the memories the team goal of winning is my favorite part of coaching,” Miller said. “Lost in all of it was Interboro giving me my chance to start coaching, and what I’ll remember most are the kids we sent off to college and all the nice phone calls I received in the last few weeks make it all worthwhile.”

Originally from Downingtown, Dooley returns to the area coming from SPIRE Academy in Geneva, Ohio. His wife wanted to move back to the area, the Shipley coaching position came open and Dooley, a 2012 Downingtown East graduate, applied.

“Growing up in the area, I know Shipley was a competitive team, and it’s a Friends Schools League school, so you know it’s high academics and the school community is really strong,” said Dooley, who graduated from Temple. “I didn’t play in college and began coaching almost right out of college.

“The Friends Schools League is loaded, with (2026 Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association (PAISAA) girls’ basketball champions) Friends Central, Westtown, which is always loaded, and national-level players.

“Westtown is going to be very good again, and Friends Central will be very good again, George School is strong, and Perkiomen School joins the league this year, and they’re strong. We’ll try and carve out our own niche. I want to build this program to last, and to compete there with those heavy hitters.”

The Gators’ most talented projected returner is Melody Vaughn, the 5-foot-9 rising sophomore who is coming off a freshman season in which she averaged 17 points a game. Shipley finished 16-9 overall and 6-2 in the league, the Gators two league losses came against powerhouses Friends Central and Westtown. Shipley lost to Mercersburg Academy in the PAISAA quarterfinals.

“We’ll run, everyone does, and SPIRE last year, we were eighth or ninth in the country not getting into track meets with people, but with Shipley, I would like to turn it up a little,” Dooley said. “The ideal situation at Shipley is build out a roster with a lot of depth, play and lot of players, run up and down and score high, and turn people over.

“The message to the girls will be to build a culture, which is something Ellen Bair did. She built a really good culture and building the program back up. Shipley was competitive and my job is to build on that. The people here at Shipley have been great and my job is to push it forward.”    

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Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who is an APSE winner and began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America.