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Archbishop Wood's Fran Dougherty to Penn

For Archbishop Wood's Fran Dougherty, it was a bright moment in an otherwise bleak senior basketball season. Dougherty, a 6-foot-8, 225-pound center who has been sidelined for a month with a stress fracture in his foot, yesterday announced his decision to continue his hoops career at Penn.

    by Rick O'Brien, Inquirer Staff Writer
    Published 

For Archbishop Wood's Fran Dougherty, it was a bright moment in an otherwise bleak senior basketball season.

Dougherty, a 6-foot-8, 225-pound center who has been sidelined for a month with a stress fracture in his foot, yesterday announced his decision to continue his hoops career at Penn.

"Right from the start, when I took an unofficial visit to the school last summer, the Penn coaches really made me feel like they wanted me," he said. "It's a great school. The campus is nice, and I'm pretty much a city kid at heart."

Dougherty had also received interest from Princeton, Lafayette, Cornell and New Hampshire. Another school in the mix was Stonehill College, a Division II program in Easton, Mass.

Jerome Allen, a former standout guard for Episcopal Academy and the Quakers, is Penn's interim coach. Glen Miller was fired last month after an 0-7 start to the season.

"The coaching situation threw me off a little bit," Dougherty said. "I was talking to some other schools after that happened, but I decided to stick with Penn. When I met Coach Allen, it was real easy to connect with him."

Dougherty, of Doylestown, plans to major in business. The 18-year-old said the walking boot he is wearing will be removed Monday, and he could return to the Vikings in mid-February.