After all-state honor, Sewickley Academy’s Lucas Grimsley working toward big senior year

By: Ray Fisher
Sunday, June 8, 2025 | 11:01 AM

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The Sewickley Academy boys basketball all-state players are named on a commemorative plaque near the entrance of the Events Center gym.

The earliest entry was Neil Hoy, who received the honor in 1998. The most recent addition to the listing is Lucas Grimsley, a talented junior guard for the Panthers.

Grimsley was honored as an all-state selection in a statewide vote of media members following the 2024-25 basketball season.

“Being named all-state is definitely an honor,” said the 6-foot-4 Grimsley. “I couldn’t have accomplished this without my teammates and coaches. I would like to thank our coaches, support staff and my teammates.”

Sewickley’s other all-state players in boys basketball are Corey Diethorn (2004), George Raftis (2005), Tom Droney (2009, 2010), Chris Groetsch (2016, 2017), Justin Pryor (2017), Nate Ridgeway (2017, 2018), Isaiah Smith (2018) and Isiah Warfield (2018, 2019).

Along with his all-state plaudit, Grimsley was named all-WPIAL and all-section for his 2024-25 performance and was lauded as the team’s offensive player of the year. He was cited as the Trib HSSN boys basketball player of the week March 24.

In past years, he has received most improved player and tournament MVP recognition.

Grimsley was one of the top shooters on the Sewickley team this season with 306 points and 59 3-pointers. He also ranked among the team leaders with 102 rebounds, 40 assists and 26 steals.

The 17-year-old Grimsley has been a varsity starter for the Panthers since his freshman year.

“I remember as eighth graders, coach (Win) Palmer invited us to some varsity workouts, and I was very nervous about attending,” Grimsley said. “But coach Palmer was really encouraging and made us feel part of the group. I will never forget that.”

Grimsley’s extracurricular focus at Sewickley Academy is zeroed in on basketball, although he has played a few other sports in his athletic career.

“I took to basketball at age 6 and have never really let it go,” Grimsley said. “My parents say I was shooting baskets at 8 months when I started walking. I’ve played AAU basketball since second grade.

“My parents asked me to play other sports in middle school, so I have played soccer and lacrosse for a couple semesters. I think both of those teams went undefeated, which was a fun and wild experience. My classmates are really good at soccer and lacrosse. Once I got into high school, though, we knew I would focus solely on basketball.”

The next personal goal on the Grimsley roundball agenda is to join the 1,000-point club at Sewickley. He will begin the 2025-26 season with 834 career points.

“Scoring 1,000 is something I would like to accomplish,” Grimsley said. “I’ll go into the offseason really wanting to improve on everything but, more specifically, I focus on trying to improve weaknesses. Even Steph Curry works on shooting, so we can always improve something.

“I try to be realistic and focus on a few strengths and weaknesses to improve. Mental conditioning and leadership are things I was introduced to this year and liked a lot.”

Sewickley enjoyed a banner season in Mike Iuzzolino’s first year as head coach. The Panthers won the Section 2-2A championship with a 12-0 record, made a deep run in the WPIAL playoffs and advanced to the PIAA finals, wrapping up the season 24-6 overall.

Iuzzolino talked about Grimsley’s strengths following the season.

“Lucas is a very good 3-point shooter but also has the ability to attack and finish at the rim,” Iuzzolino said. “Lucas has the ability to get hot quickly. When he is making 3s, he becomes difficult to guard, and so do we because it opens up so many other options for us. He has good size. He makes it difficult on the guy he is defending to get off clean looks.

“My expectations for Lucas, like all our players, are to continue to grow and improve — whether it’s improving their consistency on shooting, changing direction with ball-handling or finishing at the rim. The goal is to get 1% better every day.”

In its five PIAA playoff games, Sewickley had five different leading scorers.

Grimsley connected for 20 points against Windber, 6-8 freshman forward Mamadou Kane had 22 against Lakeview, senior forward Nolan Donnelly led with 14 against Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and Grimsley and Kane shared scoring honors with 17 apiece against GCC.

Freshman guard Drew Steals and 6-8 sophomore forward Adam Ikamba sparked the Panthers offensively against Linville Hill in the state finals with 17 and 16 points.

Two other integral players for the Panthers this season were juniors Amare Spencer, at forward, and Caiden Battles, at guard.

“We’ll definitely miss our senior captain, Nolan Donnelly,” Grimsley said. “Everyone else is returning, and we would like to build off this year. We’ll be starting over just like everyone else, and since we didn’t accomplish everything we wanted to, we’ll have to work hard this offseason to get better.

“My class will be seniors and team leaders, and our young guys will come back with experience. In my three seasons at Sewickley, I’ve had three different head coaches, so having coach Iuzzolino back will be a big plus. He’s a great coach, so we’ll be able to keep building on his philosophies and systems.”

Grimsley says he is still growing and that following high school, he plans to continue his hoops career at the next level.

The recruiting process has begun for the sharp-shooting backcourt player.

“I have received recruiting interest from schools, and I am very appreciative of the coaches and programs who have reached out. It means a lot,” Grimsley said. “I like to study and work hard in the classroom, and I enjoy practicing, working hard and competing on the court. Right now, it’s the middle of AAU season, and SAT season.”

Spoken like a true — and accomplished — student-athlete.

Tags: Sewickley Academy