Montco Community College looks to capture its first national title during historic basketball run

As the rims rattled and nets swished during pickup runs this past summer, Sean Emfinger could tell the Montgomery County Community College men’s basketball team was in for some fun.

“It was a bunch of dunks, we were hitting threes,” said Emfinger, a first-year player from Cheltenham. “The chemistry was already there just based off of talent.”

And Emfinger wasn’t wrong. The athletic Montco bunch has compiled a 27-1 record, the program’s best in school history, this season, while also winning its second Eastern Pennsylvania Athletic Conference title in three years, leading to a top-five spot in the National Junior College Athletic Association Division III rankings.

The Mustangs are on a 17-game winning streak after capturing the Region 19 championship with a 71-69 win over Brookdale (N.J.), the No. 1 ranked team in Division III, on March 2. Montco will continue its historic run as the No. 4 seed at the NJCAA Tournament in Herkimer, N.Y.

Montco has a chance to capture its first national title and will play in the quarterfinals against either No. 5 seed Brookdale or No. 12 seed Hostos Community College Caymans from New York at 4 p.m. on Thursday.

“It’s been great just trying to tie up all the loose ends,” said first-year coach Koran Prince. “Keep the kids engaged, make sure they’re locked in on their schoolwork. Besides that, it’s just getting them prepared mentally to hopefully continue a historical run.”

Prince, 32, has been at Montco for more than a decade. He was a two-year starter at Kensington High School before suiting up for the Mustangs in 2011-12. After his mother died and the birth of his daughter, he decided it was time to end his playing career. He joined former Montco coach Denny Surovec’s staff as an assistant in 2012-13.

He was on staff in 2020 when the Mustangs claimed their first regional title and went to the NJCAA championship for the first time in program history. They lost their opener that season, but Prince and assistant coaches Pete Chimera and Levi Sherriff believe this season’s group is capable of more.

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“We want to try and make sure we bring this one home,” Prince said.

Montco went 21-5 last season, losing in the second round of the regional tournament. The team’s top three players, Matt Compass (Dalton State), Willie Anderson (William Penn), and Khalid Johnson (Paine College), transferred to play at the NCAA level.

The Mustangs, though, still had key returners in sophomores Cris DiNolfi (Norristown), Ty Jones (Upper Merion), and Christian Renninger (Boyertown).

Prince said Renninger has been a “catalyst” for the group. DiNolfi, whose younger brother John also joined the team this season, hit the game-winning bucket in the Region 19 championship en route to being named the game’s MVP. He’s second on the team in scoring at 14.6 points per game.

“I’ve got confidence in my team,” Cris DiNolfi said. “I feel like we can get it all. I feel like we keep getting closer and closer. Every game, every practice, we’re becoming a family even more.”

Freshman Baasil Saunders (12.9 points), a 6-foot-5 guard who was a reserve on Imhotep’s Public League, District 12, and PIAA championship team last season, has been a standout, earning a first team all-region selection. Freshman wing Brandon Bush (13.2 points) of Cheltenham was a third team all-region selection.

Emfinger, who’s from Wyncote and started his career at Lackawanna College before taking a gap year in 2022-23, has led the Mustangs since returning from a preseason ankle injury on Jan. 13. He’s averaging a team-high 19.6 points.

“I’m trying to motivate them to just keep it pushing,” Emfinger said. “Especially in practice, because right now we’re looking to be the greatest Montco team in the last decade.”

Prince added: “We’ve been through a lot of adversity and we were able to push it over the top. … The team that we’ve got is very resilient, so we want to take all of that and try to make a wave inside the national tournament.”

This story was produced as part of a partnership between The Inquirer and City of Basketball Love, a nonprofit news organization that covers high school and college basketball in the Philadelphia area while also helping mentor the next generation of sportswriters. This collaboration will help boost coverage of the city’s vibrant amateur basketball scene, from the high school ranks up through the Big 5 and beyond.