Sammarco is a two-sport athlete at Mount Aloysius. In addition to playing basketball, she also excels as an all-conference infielder on the College’s softball team. As a Dean’s List student with a 3.7 grade point average, she was inducted into the prestigious Chi Alpha Sigma student-athlete honor society this past spring and named to the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference academic all-conference team.
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omen’s basketball player Kaylee Keagy was the first of the trio to reach the coveted scoring plateau. With less than a minute to go in the first half of the Lady Mounties’ November 11, 2011 game at Juniata College, Keagy made a back-to-thebasket post move to score her 1,000th point. When Keagy scored the basket, a noticeable, yet unexpected, roar swept through the Juniata gymnasium. “(The Juniata game) was really like a home atmosphere for us, because there were so many Mount Aloysius fans there,” Lady Mounties coach Kristi Kaack said. “It seemed like everybody came out to see Kaylee, especially her family…and it seemed like she had a big family.” Though grateful for so many of her family being there in support of her shining moment, there was one member of the family that Keagy was especially proud to have at the game—if not in body, certainly in spirit.
Keagy’s mother, Denise Keagy, passed away during her daughter’s sophomore season, after a long battle with brain cancer. “She was such a basketball nut, and my biggest fan,” Keagy said. “She and my dad were always at every game. To me, she was still at the games, watching down on me.” Keagy graduated from Mount Aloysius in December 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in criminology. She finished her career with 1,328 points, which ranks her second on the Mount Aloysius women’s basketball all-time scoring list. Since her graduation, she got engaged to her fiancé Adam Moist, and became employed as a recovery advocate at St. Joseph Institute, where she helps counsel those recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. “Looking back, scoring my 1,000th point was definitely one of the best memories of
my time at Mount Aloysius,” Keagy said. Lindsy Sammarco, a current standout for the Lady Mounties, scored her 1,000th point in dramatic fashion. The junior combo guard entered the team’s January 26, 2013 game against Penn State-Behrend averaging 18.1 points per game, and 22 points shy of the 1,000 point mark. Sammarco hit a three-pointer from the top of the key in double-overtime to reach the mark, and seal her team’s victory over Penn StateBehrend. Incidentally, it was the first time in school history that the Lady Mounties had swept the perennial conference power during the regular season. “I remember watching Kaylee Keagy score her 1,000th point, and remember being proud of her and how happy she was,” Sammarco said. “As an underclassman, I always looked up to her.”
“Lindsy’s not really one of the most athletic players in the conference,” Kaack said. “But she is one of the most competitive. She just finds a way to make it happen.” For the second consecutive year, the Lady Mounties advanced to the semi-finals of the conference tournament. This season, however, marked the first time ever that they recorded a playoff road win, when they upset higher seed Pitt-Bradford. Sammarco finished the 2012-13 season with 1,111 career points, and passed former Lady Mounties standout Missy Wertz (Hershel) for fifth on the all-time scoring list. “(Scoring 1,000 points) has been a goal of mine since my freshman year, and I am just happy to see what I worked for come true,” Sammarco said. For men’s basketball player Demetrius Davis, reaching 1,000 points was not about the destination. It was about the journey. Davis nailed a deep threepointer with 5:27 to go in the first half of the Mounties’
Summer 2013 Mount Aloysius Magazine 29
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(From left) Lindsy Sammarco, Demetrius Davis, Kaylee Keagy