South Jersey Glory Days June 23

F o r m e r A b s e g a m i w r e s t l e r / c o a c h

S h a w n S c a n n e l l l e f t h i s m a r k i n

G a l l o w a y P a g e 2 7

ABOUT THE COVER

There are only a few players at the high school level that people say, “you have to go see this kid play before they graduate.” Names like Mike Trout, Kylee Watson, Destin Lasco, Nick Suriano. You can add Hannah Hidalgo of Paul VI to that list, and if you didn’t get a chance to see her play during her illustrious high school career, check out ESPN or ESPN2 sometime next winter and you might get a glimpse of her playing at Notre Dame. Hidalgo was a magician with a basketball in her hands during her prep career. She had skills that fans normally only see during boys games, and that’s not surprising since she has played most of her life against boys. She played against University of Kentucky commit D.J. Wagner of Camden, one of the nation’s best high school players, when she was a kid and certainly held her own. She’s a 2,000-point scorer, a McDonald’s All-American, a member of Team U.S.A. U-19 team. The accolades are endless. But so is her energy to keep working to be the best she can be. Check out Page 10 of this digital editon to read more about one of the best basketball players to ever come out of South Jersey.

Dave O’Sullivan, Staff Writer

SOUTH JERSEY

GLORY DAYS

General contact information:

Phone: 856-336-2600

Publisher Dave O’Sullivan:

Email: sullyglorydays@gmail.com

On Twitter @GDsullysays

@glorydaysmag on Instagram

Contributors:

Mark Trible, Senior Football Writer

(@MTrible on Twitter)

Larry Henry Jr., Correspondent

(@Lhenry019 on Twitter)

Ben Hale, Social Media & Web Development

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3/JUNE 2023

(ISSUE NO. 165)

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QUITE A SPRING

Life is good right now for St. Joseph Academy junior softball player Ava Fisher. The pitcher/first baseman had a tremendous season for the Wildcats, leading them to a 22-6 record and a Non-Public B state championship, and she capped it off by playing a huge part in Tri-Cape’s victory in the Carpenter Cup. Fisher pitched in three straight elimination games and got the win in relief in the championship game. For the day she pitched 11 2/3 innings and finished with 23 strikeouts. For St. Joseph this spring she pitched 158 innings, struck out 237 batters and pitched to a 2.39 ERA.

CHANCE OF A LIFETIME

Another player having a great spring has been Egg Harbor Township senior pitcher Cameron Flukey. Flukey had a standout year for the Eagles and topped out around 97

miles-per-hour in some starts this spring. That caught the attention of Major League Baseball scouts, and Flukey was invited to show his stuff in the pre-draft workout at Chase Field, home of the Arizona Dia-

mondbacks.

REACHING NEW HEIGHTS

Ahmad Fogg quietly had a tremendous senior track season for EHT

this spring, as he set a new school record in the long jump with a leap of 24 feet, 4 1/4 inches. He also was a part of the 4X100 relay team that set a new school mark.

Kash-ing in FOOTBALL

By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Staff Writer

Imagine being 13 years old and getting your first taste of varsity football in front of more than a thousand fans at the Battle At The Beach season kick-off event at Ocean City High School. The late August sun already making you sweat, then pile on a bunch of butterflies in your stomach and it almost seems like the world has started spinning.

That’s what young Nate Kashey was dealing with at the end of last summer when he made his debut for Mainland Regional High against rival Egg Harbor Township in the first game of the weekend-long showcase that featured some of the best teams in the region.

Early in the second quarter, Mainland star senior running back Ja’Briel Mace broke free for a 21-yard touchdown run. Suddenly, Kashey was thrust into the varsity football spotlight, ready or not. He trotted out to the 10-yard line, went through his routine, and calmly kicked the extra point to give Mainland a 7-0 lead. He went on to repeat that — a dead-solid, perfect point-after kick — four more times as the Mustangs rolled to a 37-0 victory.

“That was crazy,” Kashey recalls. “I was very nervous, but in my head that whole game I was just like, ‘OK, it’s the same thing I’ve been doing in practice, just a lot more people are watching now.’ I knew I just had to follow the same technique and everything I had been practicing for months prior to that. I executed well. I was crazy nervous, though, to be honest. There were

thoughts of everything going through my head. But I just got out there and tried to make sure my technique was the same thing I had been doing.

“I feel like I needed to make those extra points (in the season opener) to solidify myself as the team’s kicker.”

The Mainland football program has had a string of outstanding kickers, from Jim Cooper to Mike Juliano to, most recently, Brady Panas. For years, Mustangs coach Chuck Smith, and Bob Coffey before him, never had to worry about the kicking game. And Smith might not get any gray hairs for the next three years, either. Kashey was just about automatic this past fall, converting all but a handful of his extra points and even adding a 25-yard field goal. It got to the point late in the season that when the Mustangs crossed midfield and faced a fourth down situation, the Stangs’ student cheering section would shout in unison — “We’re in Kashey territory, kick the field goal!”

The now 14-year-old doesn’t quite have the leg to be knocking home 40yard field goals just yet, but with his consistency in what he does and his bubbly, infectious personality he’s endeared himself to just about everybody in the program.

“I go and see the youth programs all the time and saw Nate kick here and there, but you don’t really put a lot of stock into kicking at that level,” Mainland coach Chuck Smith said during the season last fall. “In the summer, coach Jim Cooper, who runs 5-Star Kicking and coaches Nate, he reached out to me and said, ‘hey, this kid is au-

tomatic from this part of the field and in.’ I didn’t really think about it at that time, but he really was like the old Super Toe (toy), you hit him on the head and it goes right through the uprights. He’s really been a positive asset to have on our football team. All he does is kick and he takes that on as his job. It’s nice to have a young kid come in because we haven’t had a kicker in a few years, and we were known for having great kickers for a very long time. He’s a big part of our success. It’s so nice when you don’t have to worry about the PATs.”

Kashey also has a great bond with fellow freshman John Franchini, who was thrust into the starting quarterback job when incumbent starter Marlon Leslie decided to transfer back to Pleasantville just before the season started.

“During the season we both had each other’s backs,” Kashey said of Franchini. “We knew that he was going to be leading the team, and him and Ja’Briel helped me make all those PATs. He would always come over to me if did

something bad or good and help me get through it.”

“It’s great when you have freshmen making a big impact on a season as important as this one for us,” Smith said. “Guys like John Franchini and Nate Kashey, and some other freshmen, who are great kids to have on the team and who play their role in the right fashion and fit right in. They are going to be big parts of this program down the line, and they are finding their niche right away.”

“It was good for Nate. The one thing that was really great for Nate was the whole team was really welcoming to him. With him being a freshman, and Johnny being a freshman — I remember walking into the stadium with John Franchini and we were like, ‘OK, go freshmen!’ We didn’t know what was going to happen, so that was our chant every time. It was a cool season. The seniors, the coaches were all

South Jersey Glory Days photo/Sully

Nate Kashey was just 13 years old when he started his varsity football career and he’s quickly become a very important piece to Mainland’s success.

Freshman Nate Kashey has taken the opportunity to be Mainland’s kicker and made the most of it

so kind and supportive of Nate. There’s something about football that gives you that brotherhood,” said Kashey’s mom, Stacey. “The parents were wonderful and so kind. We are a community that comes together — three different towns that come together — and you really felt that when you were in the stadium this year. My stepson played football at Mainland, and it was just something different this year. There was just total kindness and support. I’m thrilled my son had the opportunity to see all that this year.

Kashey never really expected to be a well-known athlete on Friday nights. He figured he’d be more known for Friday afternoon soccer exploits. But he enjoyed kicking so much that he gave up his soccer career for a football helmet and kicking tee.

“Playing competitive soccer is what set the stage for football. This was really my first year as a kicker. I started doing it last year in eighth grade, but I wasn’t the designated kicker. I played whatever position they needed me to, like guard, because we were short on offensive linemen,” Kashey said. “It was maybe the fourth week of my eighth grade season. It was kind of the same thing as soccer, so I just went with it.”

Stacey said she was very surprised that her son wanted to change sports once he got to high school.

“Soccer was really his sport of choice, he played travel and on a developmental team with the Philadelphia Union for three years, so soccer was his main sport. But he said, ‘mom, I’m in eighth grade now and I think I want to go play football with all my friends.’ He had been traveling so much with soccer so he hadn’t been able to hang out with his friends. The coaches were impressed (with his kicking ability) and he really started training in the offseason in eighth grade before his freshman year with coach Cooper at 5-Star Kicking,” she said. “I was really surprised. He tried playing football in first grade but he was really afraid. My father (Bob Sandelier) was a football player who played at Nebraska, and he only had two daughters, so he loves the fact of having a grandson now who plays football.”

Stacey recalls that first game last year, at the Battle at the Beach, and feeling her heart jump up into her throat when Mainland scored and it was time for her son to make his varsity debut.

“I was a nervous wreck. I literally held my breath. We really had no idea what would happen. We knew from training for six months with coach Cooper that Nate could make it. But we didn’t know how it would be when there were other players coming at him. It was make-it-or-break-it time, and he went out there and made it. I was like, ‘oh, my gosh!’ And he just kept going. On his 25th point-after was the first time he missed. I would hold my breath, I would cry. I was so emotional. I would video every single kick and

send them to coach Cooper to see what he thought,” she said. “We used to always laugh because at the beginning of the game, when they all come running out, my and my husband would say that’s the scariest part of the whole game because we didn’t want Nate to get trampled. He was the smallest one out there. But when you’d see them all standing for the national anthem, the big, tall guys would rest their elbows on Nate’s helmet because they were so much bigger than him. It was just such a cool experience. Nate’s a really good student and we contemplated where to send him to high school, but what has happened here — and the experience he’s had at Mainland — has been so positive. Nate is the youngest in my house and the last of our five kids going through Mainland, so we’ve been at Mainland for a long time and it’s just been a great experience overall.”

For his part, Kashey said he’s learned a lot in just a short time as the Mustangs’ starting place kicker.

“I learned that there are going to be ups and downs and you really need to focus on the next game, work with the team and play as a team. We were going for those wins, fighting so hard in the playoffs, and we really bonded as a team. That’s what this team was all about. We got as far as we did because we were all as one. I’ve said it so many times, but that’s the best way to describe it — our team was one,” Kashey said. “I just want to get better every year as a kicker and keep beating my goals and progressing. I want for us to keep winning. I also want to become more of a field goal kicker, get stronger and really develop myself as more of a weapon than just PATs.”

Mainland is graduating Mace, one of the school’s all-time best players, and a host of other seniors, but Kashey is hoping the younger players can keep guiding the Mustangs to the kind of season they had in

2022, when they were one win away from reaching the state championship game. The Stangs fell just short as Millville rallied for a late victory on a chilly day in late November.

“It was amazing. I’ve never been a part of something like that,” Kashey said of the 2022 season. “You look back and see hundreds of kids jumping up and down, screaming at the top of their lungs. We had all these playmakers on the team making all these great plays — it seemed like we could score a 90-yard touchdown on any play. It was an amazing season.

“The experience of being out there as a team and the whole season — from the camps in June until the last game in December, the season was long but because of that well bonded. Whether it was practice, training, in the locker room, we all did it as one.”

And if it ever comes down to a Nate Kashey extra point to decide whether the Mustangs play for a championship — or win one — he knows he’ll be ready. He has a grade-point average well north of 4.0 and is meticulous in his preparation in everything he does.

Said his mother, “Nate’s that kid — and maybe because he is the youngest in our family — he’s got that very bubbly personality and he’s a very kind child. When he was little he would run through the house, determined to catch up to his brother. And that’s his mindset. If he puts his mind to something, he will accomplish it. This year, he’s taking Geometry and Algebra II and he’s got straight A’s. That’s just who Nate is. Kicking is really good for him with the way his mind works. He has that discipline.”

Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sullyglorydays@gmail.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays

SENIOR SPOTLIGHT u Dante Edwardi, Ocean City Baseball READY FOR ANYTHING

Edwardi never shied away from big moments during his high school career

By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Staff Writer

For a couple of different reasons

— the main being to take some pressure off his arm when he wasn’t pitching — Ocean City baseball coach Andrew Bristol decided to move senior shortstop Dante Edwardi to right field late in the 2023 season. The team needed some help in the outfield, and Edwardi is one of those guys who will play any position if it means he’s in the lineup with a chance to help his team.

During those late-season games, coach Bristol would sometimes find himself looking out to right field and seeing Edwardi working on his hitting stance, his swing or his pitching mechanics. Right field can be a lonely spot sometimes, and Edwardi wasn’t going to waste time just standing there and daydreaming. That’s the kind of baseball player he is. He probably takes imaginary swings while he’s getting dressed the morning.

Always working.

Always trying to get better.

“He listens and always wants to get better. He works hard at his craft,” Bristol said. “He’ll take extra ground balls, he’ll work on his swing, and he never complains. The first time we put him in the outfield he was working on his swing out there. He looked like the Little Leaguer that you put in the outfield. He can’t sit still. So if he’s out in the outfield he’s working on his swing, working on his pitching motion.”

All that attention to detail made Edwardi one of the top players in the Cape-Atlantic League the past two

years, and ultimately paid off in the form of a college baseball career at Fairleigh Dickenson University. He’ll get started on the next level this fall as a pitcher, bringing with him all the knowledge he’s gained the past few years, as well as a state championship he helped the Red Raiders win when he was a sophomore reserve infielder and pitcher.

He lost his freshman year to the Covid-19 pandemic and mostly rode the bench as a sophomore, but when he got the chance as a junior and senior he didn’t disappoint. As a junior and the Red Raiders’ starting shortstop, replacing the graduated James Mancini, Edwardi hit .410 with 32 hits, 20 runs scored, nine doubles and 13 RBIs, and for his career he batted .338 with 31

runs scored and 49 hits. As a pitcher, he posted a 0.10 ERA with 84 strikeouts in 61 1/3 career innings. He was a workhorse as a senior, piling up 34 innings and allowing just 10 earned runs all year.

“When I first was at Ocean City, my freshman year, I looked up to guys like Gannon Brady and Jaden Millstein. There were some big shoes to fill when James (Mancini) left, too, my junior year,” Edwardi said. “(Missing freshman year) definitely sucked because all I wanted to do was play. I was trying to get after it (and make varsity). But at least we got the Last Dance tournament in, so that was a little something. That spring I just trained at Baseball Performance Center and lifted on my own. It was weird and it threw me off,

but it threw everyone off. It was hard to adjust to, but I’m glad they put together something at the end of the season. That Last Dance tournament was pretty cool.”

“I met him as an eighth-grader. He wanted to meet me and talk baseball, and we hit it off right away. It was just me and him, his dad left us alone. His freshman year got lost to covid but he would have made varsity that year. You could tell he had a good work ethic and great skills, so we saw a big future for him. I like to take the cream of the crop among the freshmen and groom them on varsity, and he and Duke (McCarron) were the two who fit that mold. But his freshman year was a wash, and as a sophomore he was a part of that state championship run. He knew his role, he was behind Mancini, but you could see he had a lot of talent. And he was on the mound a little bit for us that year. He had good stuff, he just had to learn how to harness it,” Bristol said. “Last year he took over at shortstop and led the team in hits. He struggled a little bit on the mound with his control. He always had great stuff, he just couldn’t control it. So, he was more of a back-end starter last year, but he had a good summer, signed with Fairleigh Dickenson, and hit the ground running as a senior. He became our No. 1 pitcher. He’s the kind of kid who will do anything to win and help his team, and (late in the season) he was actually playing right field for us. He embraced it because that’s where we needed him. That’s the kind of kid he is, he’s athletic enough to do whatever you ask.”

Control on the hill has always been a bit of a thorn in Edwardi’s side as he has tried to harness the outstanding stuff he has, but he said he’s gotten a lot better at finding the strike zone since he ditched the idea of trying to strike

South Jersey Glory Days photo/Sully Dante Edwardi had an outstanding career at Ocean City, hitting better than .300 while racking up nearly 100 strikeouts as a pitcher.

everybody out. He knows he’s not going to be able to do that at the college level.

“I’ve been picking the brains of a few of my old teammates about what Division I baseball is like and most of them say that if you can command two pitches, you’ll be good. Commanding the zone is something I’m really pushing for. I threw more strikes (this spring) but I want to be able to paint the corners on guys. My breaking pitches are pretty good, I just have to hone in on the strike zone with my fastball. My mechanics have cleaned up a little bit and I’ve gotten stronger, and my baseball I.Q. has gotten better. I also think I’m more calm out there. I’m able to control my thoughts more and not get riled up as much,” Edwardi said. “I just have to not have that mentality of trying to strike everyone out and pitch to contact more. That’s where a lot of my walks come from, trying to overpower people. You have to be able to adjust. Hits are going to come and extra-base hits are going to come, so I just have to learn how to move on from that, shake it off and keep going.”

One thing that made Edwardi such a solid high school baseball player was that each year he knew his role, and not only accepted it, but excelled at it. As a sophomore, he was part of a state championship-winning team — the first in school history — and he contributed as a back-up infielder and pitcher. As a junior, he was expected to help lead the way offensively, and all he did was hit better than .400. As a senior, he was expected to be one of the aces of the pitching staff as well as a leader, and he did both of those things well.

“I feel like I shifted into where I wanted to be and things started clicking my junior year,” Edwardi said. “With the bat I was more confident in everything I did, and even defensively I had more confidence. There’s no easy way to go into (being a varsity starter). Baseball is baseball and you have to play your

hardest. The competition, initially, was hard to adjust to but like with anything, the more you do it the easier it gets.”

Edwardi credits Bristol and the Ocean City coaching staff with helping to turn him into a Division I baseball player.

“Bristol was great throughout this whole season, and he and I have had a great relationship throughout the years. He gets me more than any other coach I’ve had,” Edwardi said. “Him and I just click. Even with the move to outfield — sometimes it’s hard, you want to win so much but you don’t take into account how much stress you’re putting on your arm (by playing shortstop as well). Playing shortstop is a burden in and of itself, then trying to go out the next day and throw 80 or 90 pitches, that’s tough. It’s great to have a coach that you feel like you’re on the same page with.”

Edwardi said he doesn’t look back at his high school career with any regrets, and that he enjoyed being part of the winning tradition at Ocean City High.

“The best part about playing at Ocean City is the camaraderie. All the guys click and we all back each other up; we’re all on the same page. Especially in the playoffs, we all mold together into one unit. It’s never an ‘I’ game, it’s a team win and team moments when we have success in the playoffs,” Edwardi said. “I’ve been playing with these guys since I was 8 years old, all throughout travel ball, but I’m excited for college baseball. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

“One of the things that he is, that’s helped us, is he’s a gamer,” Bristol said. “He’ll take the ball in a big spot, he wants the at-bat in a big spot — he’ll never back down from a big spot. No moment is too big for him. There’s no fear in him. He carries himself with a lot of confidence. That’s not arrogance, that’s ‘I’m not afraid of the moment.’ And that’s huge for a team.”

Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sullyglorydays@gmail.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays

VIC’S SUBS COVER STORY

SKY’S THE LIMIT

Paul VI’s Hannah Hidalgo had one of the best prep careers in South Jersey history. And she’s just getting started.

By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Staff Writer

There’s a good reason why recently graduated Paul VI star basketball player Hannah Hidalgo is confident she can become an impact player at the University of Notre Dame when she heads to South Bend, Ind., this fall. She’s spent nearly her entire life playing hoops against boys who were older, bigger, stronger and faster. As one of the youngest in a family of six that includes four boys, Hannah was never babied on the basketball court. She had to earn everything she ever got.

And boy, did she earn some incredible accolades during one of the best high school basketball careers in South Jersey history.

She’s a two-time South Jersey Player of the Year as named by the Courier-Post, a finalist for the National Player of the Year, a McDonald’s All-American (where she was named co-MVP of the All-American Game this spring after setting a single-game scoring record), a member of Team U.S.A. U-17 national team. The past four years she led her Paul VI Eagles to an 82-12 record that included two appearances in the Non-Public A state championship game. She scored nearly 700 points her senior year to finish her career with 2,135 points while also racking up nearly 500 rebounds and almost 400 assists. She had 541 steals in 91 games played and even had 30 career blocked shots despite being only 5-foot-7. About the only thing she’s leaving high school without is a state championship, as the Eagles lost close games to

St. John Vianney in the state title game the past two years.

Ironically, Hannah, a Merchantville, Camden County resident, didn’t even like basketball when she first started playing. She showed up to games to drink the Gatorade.

“When I first started playing, I was playing in a recreation league with all boys. I’ve always been playing against boys. I didn’t really like basketball at first, I didn’t like it at all. I was just there to drink the Gatorade,” she said. “My dad would get mad at me because I didn’t want to touch the ball, but as I got older I was just always in the gym and

(basketball) kind of grew on me. With all my brothers playing basketball and my parents coaching it, the game just grew on me.”

Her father — and Paul VI varsity girls coach — Orlando said he knew his daughter was something special on the basketball court from a very early age.

“At a very young age — probably when she was 8 years old — we could tell she was different. Just her desire to compete and the

South Jersey Glory Days photo/Sully

Hannah Hidalgo scored more than 2,000 points during her high school basketball career and was named a McDonald’s All-American.

amount of time she would practice trying to achieve something, I could tell she was different. She was special. I’ve coached for more than 20 years so I’ve seen a lot of kids, and she’s definitely different. I saw her and D.J. (Wagner, star guard from Camden High and University of Kentucky recruit) when they were little and they played in a league together in Camden, and I remember thinking, ‘wow, at that young age both of those kids are special.’ The same things I saw in her, I saw in D.J., and in high school all that came to fruition,” Orlando said. “She was always around basketball and she was always playing against boys. Even in middle school, she played as the only girl on a boys team. She learned how to play the game at the level the boys played, and being around her brothers playing basketball so much really helped her become the competitive player that she is. She’ll go up against anybody. The only time she got to play against girls was when she played for her AAU team, other than that she was practicing or

playing against boys, and I think that gave her an advantage.”

When you watch Hannah play basketball these days you see a fearless competitor whose drive to be the best is almost manic. She has an incredible skill set and was almost too good to play high school basketball as a junior and senior. She can score in such a variety of ways that no Paul VI opponent could stop her. Her WORST game this year, scoring wise, came in a 95-33 dismantling of Bishop Eustace and she STILL had a triple-double (17 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists). She can score in the lane off the dribble, she can get her defender moving toward the basket, stop on a dime and pull up and nail a 12-foot jumper. She can hit 3-pointers, she can sink fadeaways at the baseline.

But she wasn’t always that good. It’s taken years of dedication, endless hours in the gym and the willingness to get knocked around by bigger, stronger, tougher boys for years because she knew that’s what it was going to take to make her dream of playing elite Division I basketball come true.

“If I have to go away and

play somewhere big I always play against my brother, who is 6-foot-4, 190 pounds (to prepare). It always helps going up against boys who are going to be bigger, stronger and faster. That prepares me for playing against the girls. No point guard I’m going to play against is going to be 6-4, 190, so going against (my brother) helps me,” Hannah said. “I have to find different ways to score against my brothers and my cousin — he’s 6-foot-4 also and crazy athletic — so I have to be able to find different ways to score. If I just try to finish the way I normally do, he’ll pin my shot (against the backboard). Being able to score in different ways with jump shots, midrange, floaters, stuff like that.”

“Her younger brother is 6-foot4 so she had to learn how to play against him, and her other brothers were always bigger, faster and stronger — so she had to adjust her game and figure out ways to compete against them, and that has really helped her in high school and AAU. I’ve coached kids who have played at a very high level, so she’s always been around that type of elite level player. And she was never afraid,

she’d go against them and try to kick their butts,” Orlando said. “All those moves come from her playing against boys who are very physical. When she played against boys and got knocked down, we didn’t baby her, she just got right back up. She didn’t want you to come running to her because that would embarrass her more than anything. So she’s learned how to be physical. She’s only 5-foot-7 but she’ll go in there against a 6-foot-4 girl. She’s learned how to use the angles of the court to get her shot off, or she’ll get fouled and figure out how to still make the basket.”

Despite her talent, Hannah said it took her a little while when she got to high school to develop the type of consistent confidence she needed to go along with her skill set.

“I didn’t have that dog in me when I was a freshman,” she explained. “I didn’t like to talk, I just went on the court, did what I had to do and went home. But as I got older, it really grew on me — I don’t know where it came See

from, but this fire grew in me and I have such a love for this game now. I guess that dog came out of me. God blessed me with a talent so I try to take advantage of every opportunity. I play hard. I play every game like it’s my last game.”

That fire is burning brightly now, and her father relishes the opportunity to talk about his daughter’s competitive drive. He’s more proud that she’s willing to take on anyone, anywhere, than he is about any trophies or scoring titles.

“She’s one of a kind. There are plenty of stories about her competitiveness — she would lose a game and call me and I remember how upset she was that she lost a game. She would go and watch film and try to figure out how to get better and how to do better against her opponent. She was always that person. Not only does she display that competitiveness on the court, but outside the court she’s always been a student of the game and trying to figure out ways to get better. She hates to lose. She doesn’t care what the score is, she’s playing hard on both end of the court. You can never tell if we’re winning or losing, because if we’re up by 20 she’s playing like it’s her last game, and if we’re down 20 she’s playing the same way. She’s a player who hates losing,” he said. “She puts countless hours in the gym and she has worked on attacking the basket, her mid-range shot. There were times during her high school career that we’d finish a game and right after she’d have

to make 50 three-pointers before leaving the court. That was every game, win or lose. She’d be there shooting, and that’s just who she is. She wants to be great at what she does. The way she’s climbed to become a McDonald’s All-American and playing for Team U.S.A. — that’s a credit to her. She’s put in so much work to be the best. She’s never content or satisfied. She loves the game, and she doesn’t disrespect it by just walking out there. She’s going to give it all she’s got.”

Orlando said it’s like something out of a movie when his daughter steps on the court and you see that fire burning in her eyes. She has a relentless motor and will do anything to win — diving for loose balls, defending a 6-foot post player, ramping up full-court pressure the whole game if necessary.

“She’s like two different people. Outside the court she’s very quiet and reserved, and a little goofy when she’s around the family. She’s very humble, doesn’t boast about anything — but when she steps out on the court it’s like a whole different person comes in,” he said. “She’s aggressive, she talks, she’s in your face. That’s just her competitive nature. As a father, and as a coach, it’s a dream to have a kid who plays so hard on both ends of the

court. Normally you’ll have a kid who’s really good on offense but doesn’t play any defense, or you’ll have a kid who gets after it on defense but isn’t very good on offense. In her case, she’s great on both ends of the court. And her motor just doesn’t stop.”

After a legendary high school career and a busy summer, Hannah soon will be off to Notre Dame, where she’ll be joining another South Jersey legend — Kylee Watson of Mainland Regional, who also scored more than 2,000 points in her prep career before going to the University of Oregon for the first two years of her NCAA career.

“I’m extremely excited to go to Notre Dame, to go play with those girls and be coached by one of the top coaches in the game (Niele Ivy). I’m super excited for that and to be around that whole environment at Notre Dame,” Hannah said. “I think that’s going to be a great opportunity. Four years ago I didn’t have a dream school or know where I wanted to go, but I think that was a good thing because if I had a dream school and didn’t end up there it would have been heartbreaking. I just took whatever God gave me and he opened all these doors to go to any school that I wanted to, which was a blessing. Notre Dame built a great connection

with me.”

Her father says that whatever you saw from Hannah in the blue-and-white of Paul VI — expect more of the same in South Bend.

“You’re not going to see too much of a drop-off (once she gets to Notre Dame) because of the type of personality she has. When she was in middle school we had conversations and set goals. I always believe you have to set goals for yourself because how else will you know if you can accomplish something? So, one of the things we said was we wanted her to get 2,000 points in high school, win a state championship, be a McDonald’s All-American player, be a Team U.S.A. player — those were the goals, and sure enough, she was able to accomplish everything except winning a state title,” Orlando said. “We set those goals, and now one of the things she wants to do (at Notre Dame) is she wants to win Freshman Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year and win a couple of national championships, so she’s already setting goals for herself in college. Those things will motivate her to continue to try to be an elite player. Playing with and against some of the best players in the country, and being able to shine, tells you that in college she’ll be the same.

“One thing about her is she’ll watch film and be in the gym as much as possible. (At Notre Dame) she’ll have trainers and coaches there to help her out, and I can see the sky is the limit for her.”

Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sullyglorydays@gmail.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays

“Her younger brother is 6-foot-4 so she had to learn how to play against him, and her other brothers were always bigger, faster and stronger — so she had to adjust her game and figure out ways to compete against them.”

Orlando Hidalgo Hannah’s father and high school coach

SENIOR OF THE MONTH / Jada Elston / Middle Township

Quintessential student-athlete

Elston was total package throughout her Panthers career

By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Staff Writer

In the past decade, the Middle Township High girls basketball program has produced some of the best players in the Cape-Atlantic League. The names read off like a who’s who of South Jersey girls basketball: Jenna and Kate Herlihy, Bridget Ruskey, Summer and Kira Sides, Allison and Aubrey Hunter, Madison Barber. You can add Jada Elston to that list.

The 2023 graduate took the reigns from Kate Herlihy and helped keep the Panthers’ winning tradition going. South Jersey Glory Days’ Shore Ortho Senior of the Month scored more than 500 points in her senior season, tallied more than 1,000 for her career, and led Middle Township to a 23-9 record this past winter that included a South Jersey Group 2 championship.

The numbers she put up during her career — 1,152 points in 95 games, 117 three-pointers made, nearly 200 rebounds, 123 assists and 81 steals — certainly will be enough to get her into the Middle Township High Hall of Fame someday. But when it comes to Elston, her value to the program goes well beyond numbers on a stat sheet.

“Jada has really been one of the cornerstones of our program for the last four years. I really think she is a tremendous role model for all the younger kids out there. She really is the definition of what a student-athlete is supposed to be. Obviously, she has worked her tail off to get better at her sport, but

she’s also a straight-A student, she’s one of the leaders in our hallways in terms of our student population, she’s involved in clubs and different community events. She does a lot outside of school to give back to her community. She really is the full package and she’s a tremendous example of what a student-athlete should be,” said longtime Panthers coach John Leahy. “I tell people all the time I’m very lucky to be able to coach great kids. It’s neat to see how Jada has evolved as a player and also grow up and mature as a person. She had great role models when she was a freshman — we had really good

seniors like Kira Sides and Maddy Barber. So she had kids that she learned from. We try to stress to the kids in our program that they have a responsibility to pass the torch on to the younger kids and show them what’s expected. And Jada has certainly done that. She has grown as a leader, and every year she’s accepted more responsibility. She’s been great. I like to think that the younger kids in our program have learned a lot from her, and now it’s her turn to pass the torch to the other kids. We try to teach these kids how to be leaders and let them take our program where it needs to be.”

“(My high school career) went by quickly, to say the least, but I enjoyed every minute of it. Coming into high school, I was battled tested right from the beginning. We had such a good group. We had seven seniors that year and they pushed me every day, and I thank them for my success. I was battle tested every practice. That was a great teaching year. Every day I went in eager to learn and soak in every moment of what those seniors had to offer.

See ELSTON, Page 16

South Jersey Glory Days photo/Sully

Jada Elston, a 2023 graduate of Middle Township High, finished her high school basketball career with more than 1,100 points and a South Jersey championship.

Overall, that helped me establish my role and develop,” said Elston, who received a full scholarship offer to Fairleigh Dickinson University and will play for former Ocean City High coach Stephanie Gaitley, who just got hired by FDU this spring. “My point totals at the end of the game are nothing that I set in stone, I just tried to do everything I could to help my team win. If that meant me scoring 20 points then so be it, but if it meant scoring less than 10 points, I was fine with that, too.”

Elston didn’t start out as a superstar. Leahy, like he does with just about every other highly touted freshman, eased her into the lineup and let her do what she was comfortable with before trying to load too much responsibility onto her shoulders. But as she grew and matured, so did the expectations and the responsibility.

“Our kids are super competitive and a lot of kids are multi-sport athletes, and our kids are also very lucky to have a lot of support from their families and friends, as well as the community. They take that support and embrace it. In our program, we’ve tried to set a certain standard and have expectations about how we handle ourselves, both on and off the court, and Jada is a perfect example of somebody who came in as a player who filled a role and learned from the older kids before growing into a leader. She took on more responsibility each year, and now she has a full scholarship to go play college basketball. She’ll go on and do great things in college,” Leahy said. “When you think about her career, as a freshman she was able to get into the rotation but her role was very simple. She was asked to play defense and just kind of fit in (on offense), make a few open shots. We didn’t really ask her to do too much. As a sophomore, she had to do more offensively, and it was really her and Kate Herlihy. Then, as a junior and senior, we really needed her to score a lot. It’s nice to see a kid like her develop every year and work on their game in the offseason. Jada is one of those kids who is all about winning, all about her teammates and making her team better. I couldn’t think of a better way to finish off her career than getting a chance to win a South Jersey title on our home floor. She scored her 1,000th point on Senior Night — so she had some great things to cap off her senior year.”

Elston said she took a measured approach to improving throughout her high school career, getting hyper-focused on a few things each offseason that she could improve upon, until she became a well-rounded basketball player as a senior.

“I meet with trainers year ‘round and in the offseason I focus on one or two things that I want to improve on. I make those my targets for the next season,” she explained. “So it’s been just working on my weaknesses during the offseason and trying

John Leahy Middle Township coach

to apply that as much as I can in open gyms or fullcourt games against players from other teams. I really enjoy that, and building friendships outside of basketball. My success has come with reps and time, and wanting to get better at something you know you struggle with.”

Helping her along the way was Leahy, one of the premier high school girls basketball coaches in the entire state.

“Coach Leahy is amazing. I thank him for every opportunity he’s ever given me. I’ll forever be thankful for the trust and the relationship that he and I have, and how that has grown over the years,” Elston, a Woodbine resident, said. “He’s tough, but at the end of the day he tells us we’re like his kids. We know he’s there for us in any situation. He might get heated in the moment, but 20 minutes later he’ll be that goofy, funny guy that we all know. He’s the kind of guy that if we think he’s being too hard on us, we’ll all sit down in his classroom and have a discussion about it and we can say what we need to do better. He makes it a big point that it’s not his team, it’s our team, and we all figure things out together.”

It also helps having teachers who understand how difficult a high school basketball season can be, especially at Middle Township. Most of the Panthers’ away games feature at least a 45-minute bus ride, which means getting home late at night during midweek games. That can make studying for a test or doing homework a challenge late at night.

“The teachers are really understanding. We play a lot of teams that aren’t in Cape May County and we have to leave school early sometimes. But our staff really makes it a point for us to manage our time, whether it be in study hall or in class when we have extra time, just getting that work done,” Elston said. “I really took advantage of that. And coach is always open to us coming down to his classroom to get away from everything so we can focus. If we have a big test or something that might cause us to be late to practice, he’s fine with that because he knows school comes first. We always help each other (as teammates) too. We’re all on the same page in terms of wanting to be good academically first, before basket-

ball. And that helps a lot.”

When it came time for basketball, though, few shined the way Elston did. This past season she scored in double figures in all but two games and she scored 24 points in a win over OLMA, 26 in a win over Vineland, and 30 in another win over Vineland. During the Panthers’ five playoff games she scored 24, 26, 15, 31 and 17 points. Those 31 points came in the sectional championship win over Cinnaminson.

“It hasn’t even hit me yet that the season is over. But knowing my name will be on the 1,000-point banner for as long as this school stands is really cool. Hopefully people will look up at that banner, read my name and think about the good things I’ve done for this program,” Elston said. “Winning a South Jersey championship was a night I’ll never forget. It was wonderful, and to be able to do it on our home floor made it that much more special with all our families there. The whole community came out, and to be able to hang a banner feels wonderful. Me and my teammates really enjoyed that night and that’s something we’ll be able to talk about for years to come.”

“We tried to put her in the best position we could for her to succeed. She’s put in a ton of time to make her game better so she’s not one-dimensional. She wanted to have different options in her game and as a result she’s able to score at all three levels (in the post, mid-range and 3-pointers). Her free-throw shooting is tremendous and that’s a big advantage. It’s always nice when you have a player who other teams have to game-plan for, and they still go out and get 20 points,” Leahy said. “I think she’s going to do great at FDU. I know the type of work ethic she has. When you get to that level, you’re going to have great coaches, great facilities and everything you need to succeed. I think you’ll see — there’s a big adjustment period going from high school to college, so it will take some time — but I think similar to her high school career, she’ll continue to get better and figure it out as she goes. There isn’t going to be anybody who’s going to out-work her, that’s for sure.”

Whatever happens for Elston in the future, she’ll never forget her roots at Middle Township. She bleeds black-and-orange.

“I couldn’t see myself at any other school and I’m really glad I decided to make Middle my destination for high school,” she said. “The environment, the student body, everyone is so involved. I’ll have people who have never played basketball a day in their life say, ‘I watched you last night and you played so well.’ It’s nice to have that kind of support system.

Added Leahy, “like all my kids, she has a great support system at home. Her parents have been great, and she’s from Woodbine and that whole community has embraced her. She’s made a lot of people very proud, that’s for sure.”

Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sullyglorydays@gmail.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays

“She has worked her tail off to get better at her sport, but she’s also a straight-A student, she’s one of the leaders in our hallways ... she really is the full package and she’s a tremendous example of what a student-athlete should be.”

SENIOR SPOTLIGHT u Bryan Perez, Mainland Regional Baseball

Perseverance pays off

spring of 2023.

By KAYLIN FLUKEY Correspondent

Every baseball player has the same fantasy of hearing his name called in the starting lineup as the team gets ready to take the field in the state championship game. It’s a moment high school players wait their whole lives for.

However, what that kind of fantasy becoming reality relies on is the amount of work and dedication it takes to simply make the varsity team at an outstanding baseball school, let alone be an integral part of a

team that gets to do something special.

Bryan Perez, a senior this spring at Mainland Regional High, knows firsthand that the road to get to that moment can be a bumpy one for some players. Perez spent his first three years of high school on the junior varsity baseball field, growing into his lanky body and continuing to develop his baseball skills.

After Perez’s junior season and a long talk with the coaching staff, Perez knew this past offseason was the most important one yet if he wanted to be physically and mentally ready to play on varsity in the

“Going into his senior year, we had talked in the off season about how he had an uphill climb because he didn’t play any varsity as a junior, so he needed to make a big jump to be an everyday player in the lineup,” said Mainland head coach Billy Kern.

Perez spent countless hours in the gym and the batting cages getting himself ready for his senior year. He knew all along that a starting spot belonged to him and he was going to do whatever it took to prove it. As it turned out, he had to do even more than he was expecting to earn a full-time starting position.

South Jersey Glory Days photos/Sully

Bryan Perez had to wait four years to earn his starting spot on the Mainland baseball team, but made the most of it as a senior, leading the Stangs to a berth in the state championship game.

Bryan Perez was a JV player as a junior. This year, he helped lead Mainland into the state championship game.

“He changed his body physically. He’s much stronger and came in with the expectation that he was going to compete and start at third base.” Kern said. “We rotated guys for a few weeks early in the season and he won the job. He’s been fantastic for us at third all season.”

It was a big jump for Perez coming up from varsity after three years on JV, but he turned to his coaches and fellow seniors for guidance, and he molded right in. Perez did not waste any time as he recorded his first varsity hit, a two-run single in their win against Oakcrest on April 6.

“It felt good knowing that the hard work I put in during the offseason and during the season paid off and I’m just trying to keep the same mentality,” said Perez.

Perez didn’t have much time to celebrate his new position because the work had only just begun. The Mustangs had a very rocky season, coming away with some big wins but also some tough losses. They were just 9-13 heading into the state playoffs, and the No. 9 seed in the always tough 16-team South Jersey Group 3 tournament.

One of the biggest wins of the season came against Groupo 4 stalwart Egg Harbor Township. In the first matchup on April 24, the Mustangs fell to the Eagles 2-0. The next day, Mainland came back for redemption on their home turf. The game was all tied up in the bottom of the seventh inning. Perez stepped up to the plate with a runner on base and a chance to be the hero.

“I wouldn’t say I was calm exactly. I just tried to focus on everything that I have been working on the past year and just putting the bat on the ball and just letting whatever happens, happen.”

Perez trusted himself and his abilities to get the job done, hitting a single to drive in the winning run. Teams often turn to their leaders in pressure situations for guidance. Being only one of four seniors on the entire varsity roster along with Nick Wagner, Joe Sheeran and Lukas Englert, Perez was someone the team turned to for comfort and stability.

“He’s a quiet leader but his demeanor

doesn’t change. He doesn’t get too far up or too far down, and so our young guys can lean on him to keep the dugout calm in any situation.” Kern said.

Not only is Perez a selfless leader in the dugout, but between the lines as well. Perez finished the season with 12 hits and 14 RBIs. Runs batted in is arguably the most important statistic in baseball — that’s what wins games. Perez having more runs batted in than hits — and finishing third on the team in that category — proves his selflessness and dedication to manufacturing runs for his team.

Perez’s attitude toward the game played a big factor in the Mustangs’ historic post-season run. The Mustangs entered as underdogs and no one expected them to make it past the first or second round of the state tournament, including themselves. However, the four seniors were not ready for their days as a Mustang to be over, and the team was determined to make it last as long as possible. They scored an opening-round win over No. 8 Cumberland Regional, then went on the road in the second round and shocked top-seeded Shawnee to advance to the sectional

semifinals.

“Once we got rolling, we just tried to keep the same mentality of working and grinding all of these games out and playing all seven innings as hard as possible.” Perez said.

The Mustangs kept proving everyone wrong as this group of scrappy baseball players from Linwood made it all the way to the NJSIAA Group 3 state championship game. After beating No. 4 Hammonton in the sectional semifinals, the Stangs took care of No. 2 Delsea Regional, 6-4, in the championship game. A win in the group semifinals put Mainland into the state championship game against Morris Knolls.

A game when Perez got to hear his name read aloud in the starting lineup by the P.A. announcer at Bob DeMeo Field in Hamilton, Mercer County.

Perez made the most out of his dream moment, recording a two-run single in the first inning of the championship game. However, all good things must come to an end. The curtains fell on the Cinderella story as Morris Knolls defeated Mainland 9-3.

Even though the Mustangs did not come away with a state title, the jour-

ney to get there was more than what they could have asked for. This was more than just a historic season for Perez, it was a representation that hard work pays off and that anything is possible if you are willing to work for it.

He will be stepping into the next chapter of his life at Stockton University this fall with hopes of continuing his baseball career. He may have taken off the green-and-black uniform for the last time, but the lessons, memories and friendships obtained while wearing it will last a lifetime.

Perez is a beacon of light for players of all ages who are fighting for that starting position. It might take a few weeks, a few months or even a few years, but never lose sight of your goal.

“Keep working, your chance will pop up.” Perez said.

Kaylin Flukey is a 2020 Absegami High School graduate and a rising senior at Iona University studying journalism. She’s a contributing writer for South Jersey Glory Days.

PEREZ, From Page 18

SENIOR SPOTLIGHT u Jay-Nelly Reyes, EHT Basketball

The building of a champion

By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Staff Writer

The 21st century is a world of instant gratification — if a website takes more than a second to load on our phones we get frustrated. Even fast food is faster with the implementation of mobile app ordering before you even get to the drive through. Nobody wants to wait for anything anymore. That’s why we have tap-and-go payment options at convenience stores.

In the world of high school athletics, many times if a kid isn’t in the starting lineup as a freshman or sophomore they are looking to transfer. They don’t want to hear that they aren’t good enough for varsity, or aren’t mature enough, or just aren’t ready.

Jay-Nelly Reyes isn’t one of those kinds of kids. He’s kind of an anomaly at his age — a deep thinker, someone who has enough wherewithal to understand the big picture. A couple years ago he was one of those sophomores on the junior varsity team, and Egg Harbor Township boys basketball coach Cameron Bell kept telling him to be patient, that his time would come. And when it did, Reyes was going to do some special things.

That’s not an easy thing for a 15-year old boy to hear. But Reyes put his faith in Bell, and that faith was rewarded. Handsomely.

As a junior, Reyes was a key contributor for the Eagles, averaging six

points and seven rebounds per game while helping lead EHT to a 23-4 record. But that season was marred by disappointment, as top-seeded EHT was shocked by No. 8 Mainland in the opening round of the Cape-Atlantic League Tournament, and the Eagles lost to Lenape in the semifinals of the South Jersey Group 4 state playoffs. They had 23 wins, but nothing to show for it.

By this time, however, Reyes realized that nothing good worth having comes easily, and last summer he got to work on becoming the best player he could possibly be as a senior. That effort resulted in a tremendous season that had Reyes in the conversation as one of the best players in South Jersey. He averaged nearly 14 points per game, finished with almost 200 rebounds and added 92 assists and 136 steals. He also led Egg Harbor Township to the first CAL Tournament and sectional championships in program history.

“I have to give a lot of thanks to coach Bell, he’s been my biggest motivation. Sophomore year, I didn’t get that much playing time but he’s the reason I really kept playing basketball,” Reyes said.

“He’s always encouraged me and told me I was good enough, I just had to wait my turn and that’s exactly what I did. I went from sitting the bench (as a sophomore) to starting (as a junior). I had a great year last year, numbers-wise, and last summer I just put

in countless hours of work in with my coach. That whole summer he instilled this mindset in me that I just had to believe in myself, because he believed in me. He hit a switch or something, and I had a great senior year. He was always encouraging me, and even if I messed up he always reminded me that everyone messes up, nobody is perfect. He’s always been in my corner and I’ll always love him for that.”

“This has been a two-year maturation process for him. We knew his freshman year that he had ability. Then sophomore year was the covid year, and had that been a normal year he would have split time between JV and varsity and would have gotten a lot of reps. But because of what the covid rules were that season, you weren’t allowed to play both levels so he sat a lot of varsity,” coach Bell explained. “He didn’t play a ton, but the experience he got playing against Carlos Lopez in practice and guys like Ahmad Brock, J.J. Germann and Ethan Dodd — after that season he

came to me and said, ‘coach, what do you need from me in the offseason for me to get better?’ He worked on his defense because that can get you on the floor, and he came back junior year as a tenacious defender. He knew we didn’t need his offense yet because we had Lopez, Anthony Colon, D.J. Germann and Isaiah Glenn. But this past offseason he knew those guys were gone and it was just him and D.J. He really honed in on his ball handing, his finishing and his shooting while still maintaining his defensive aggressiveness.”

The 2021-2022 season was supposed to be the one where EHT arrived and proved it could win big games, win sectional titles and go play for a state title. The Eagles had one of the state’s best players in Carlos Lopez. They could hit threes, score in transition, defend. They could beat man-to-man defenses,

It took years, a lot of patience, and faith in his coach for Jay-Nelly Reyes to get where he wanted to be

South Jersey Glory Days photo/Sully

Jay-Nelly Reyes helped lead EHT to its first Cape-Atlantic League and sectional championships in program history.

zones, traps. But it just didn’t materialize in the postseason. The Eagles played terribly against a highly motivated Mainland team in the opening round of the CAL Tournament that year, and in the blink of an eye the No. 1 seed was gone. They regrouped in the state playoffs and blasted Atlantic Tech and Clearview, but then got dumped, 66-52, against Lenape in the semis.

“I feel like everyone wrote our story for us last year, we didn’t really get to write our own. Coming into this year, we had to worry about what we wanted. Obviously, we wanted to win and do all those things (like win the CAL and a sectional championship) but we wanted to do those things because we wanted to and not because anybody told us we should or had to,” Reyes said. “This year, we just turned to a new page in the book and came into this year like, yes, we’re going to win, but we’re going to win our way, EHT’s way. I’m glad we did it our way. We worked for it without any outside forces coming our way.”

This past season wasn’t without its disappointments either. The Eagles came out of the gates on fire, winning eight of their first nine games, but then got blown out by Camden Catholic, 69-57. The only reason it was even that close was because EHT scored 28 points in the fourth quarter against the Irish’s backups.

“I remember that game because that was probably one of the worst games I’ve ever played. After that game, I didn’t really say it out loud but I had a realization with myself — and as a team we had a realization — that we cannot play one-on-one basketball, we have to start playing as a team,” Reyes said. “After that, we started listening to our coaches more, asking more questions, really getting after it with the film. We studied the other teams, but we also studied ourselves and worked on our weaknesses to try to make them better. We also wanted to make our strengths stronger than ever. After that game we really worked on ourselves and changed our mentality.”

The Eagles lost just four games the rest of the season — the last coming in the Group 4 state championship game against Patterson Eastside. Reyes said he knew this EHT team could make it to the state championship game after a big road win against St. Augustine Prep in late January.

“I thought this past season was a great one, probably the most fun I’ve ever had playing basketball. That was one of the bigger things — me having fun. For us to have fun and win at the same time was special for me. And also playing with guys who I’ve been playing with my whole life, for us to finish out our senior campaign together the way we did was something special,” he said. “We’ve been talking about winning a state title since the summer time. During our first practice, coach Bell asked us what we wanted from this year. I answered him and said,

‘we want to win a state title.’ Losing last year (in the CAL first round and sectional semis), obviously that confidence wasn’t built in us yet. But after we beat St. Augustine Prep at their place we knew we were good enough. Prep was a top-10 team in the state, and for us, we wanted to be in that conversation as well. So, after winning a tough game like that on the road, we knew the only thing holding us back was us. After that we kept having great practices and great wins, and when the playoffs came around all the momentum was with us.”

EHT went 28-6 this past season and won nine straight postseason games before falling to Eastside.

“We wanted to win the state title, but it was great making history at our school, bringing the first CAL and sectional championships to this team. Basketball wasn’t really a winning program and (the 2021-2022 season) was supposed to be the year that we really won something. For us to do it this year, I feel like we made our mark,” Reyes said. “We’ll never be forgotten in that school. Everyone will remember us because we brought a title to that school, and it was cool doing it with the guys I grew up with.”

All this was made possible because a young sophomore believed in his coach and decided he wanted to do something special at his hometown school.

“EHT is home to me, so I feel like (transferring) would have been kind of selfish. Coach Bell is one of the most unselfish people on the planet, and I knew if he was telling me to wait my turn it was because he was thinking about what I can do, and he sees something in me that I don’t see in myself yet,” said Reyes, who plans to play college basketball at Wid-

ener this fall. “Obviously, it worked out for me to wait my turn. I feel like if I went to a different school, I wouldn’t have a sectional championship, or a CAL championship. I feel like everything happens for a reason. If I had started on varsity since my freshman year, I wouldn’t have had that motivation to keep getting better. Me sitting those two years made me work harder than most of these other people who started their freshman year. I was hungry, and as soon as I got a starting spot I was not going to let anyone take it from me.”

“It’s a story of a kid who listened to coaching, bought into coaching, craved coaching and it turned out great for him. He’s such a great kid. What he’s done speaks to his character. It speaks to his belief in Egg Harbor Township as a school district and his belief in me, our coaching staff and this program,” Bell said. “A lot of kids would have cut out of here and gone somewhere else after their sophomore year of not playing varsity. He could have said, ‘I’m not starting, I’m not getting the minutes I want, I’m outta here.’ But it’s rare for a kid to be able to see further than a month ahead. This kid saw a year or two ahead and said, ‘I’m going to stick it out because this is working and I’m going to be a big part of it.’ I keep saying it — and I feel like I’m repeating myself over and over — but I’m so proud of that kid. He’s a kid who I’m proud that my two children get to watch and talk to every day.”

Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sullyglorydays@gmail.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays

South Jersey Glory Days photo/Sully Reyes averaged 14 points per game while leading Egg Harbor Township to 28 wins this past season.

From Philly to the Gulf Coast BASKETBALL

Former St. Augustine Prep and Neumann-Goretti standout Blaise Vespe took a winding road to get to his college hoops destination

By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Staff Writer

Navigating the landscape of college basketball — or any college sport, for that matter — hasn’t been easy for talented players. The Covid-19 global pandemic created a back-log of players staying in college to make up for the time that was lost in 2020, and that has had a ripple effect as subsequent high school graduating classes found it even more difficult to earn a spot on a college roster.

Thousands of athletes staying in college for an extra year has meant less spots for incoming freshmen, so a lot of athletes have had to figure out how they want to approach their college careers. Some chose the junior college rout while others decided to do a post-graduate year in the hopes that more roster spots would open up in 2022 and 2023.

Blaise Vespe, a 20-year-old Cherry Hill native and former basketball player at St. Augustine Prep and Neumann-Goretti in Philadelphia, took what you might call the scenic route on his way to Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, Fla.

“I decided to go post-grad because when I was at Neuman-Goretti our team was ranked No. 9 in the country, our best player was Jordan Hall, who now plays for the San Antonio Spurs, our point guard was Hysier Miller, who starts for Temple, Che Evans played for San Diego State — the list goes on and on, like 10 Division I players,” said Vespe, who fielded offers from Fairleigh Dickenson, IUPUI and Central Connecticut State while in high school. “I started and played a lot, but

my role wasn’t to score. I was like a Swiss Army knife, I did a little bit of everything. My job basically was to stop the other team’s best player. Some college coaches took notice of that, some didn’t.”

Vespe, a 2021 high school graduate, talks about how he missed his senior season because of covid, and now with the new transfer portal in college sports it’s like the Wild West when it comes to recruiting. He said if a kid gets an offer that he likes, he better jump on

it because college coaches will give that scholarship to somebody else in a week. In the supply-and-demand of college sports, there’s an overload of supply right now.

“I missed summer AAU and all of my senior season because of covid, so that really messed me up,” Vespe explained. “And with the transfer portal and all those kids in college getting an extra year — it’s even affecting me now, as a college freshman. Normally a lot of guys would be leaving next year

and I’d be starting, but they all get to come back for a covid year, so there’s a chance I might not start next year as a sophomore.”

After the disappointing end to his high school career, Vespe decided to do a post-graduate year at the prestigious IMG Academy in Florida.

See PHILLY, Page 25

Photos courtesy of Adam Koszo Blaise Vespe, who played as a freshman in high school at St. Augustine Prep, has made his way to Florida Gulf Coast University after quite a basketball journey.

“During some training I met a kid named Quadir Copeland, who plays for Syracuse now, and he was committed to go to IMG for a post-grad year, so we talked about it. I sent the coaches there my film and then they started recruiting me,” Vespe said. “IMG was a great experience. When I first started there, our team was ridiculous — we had Alex Karaban from UConn, A.J. Storr from St. John’s, two kids who are now at Syracuse — the list goes on and on. The team had 13 players and 11 of them went on to play Division I. Competing for a spot on that team was tough. I worked hard all year and finally broke into the lineup about halfway through the season, and I started averaging about 20 points and 12 rebounds per game, and that’s when I picked up my offer from FGCU.”

It’s been what seems like a long and winding road for Vespe to end up at Florida Gulf Coast, but he said he couldn’t be happier with the way things worked out. The Eagles went 17-15 this past season, finishing eighth in the 14-team Atlantic Sun Conference. Vespe appeared in 11 games, averaging 2.5 points and 1.5 rebounds in a limited role off the bench, but he said he’s hoping he can contribute a lot more over the next few years now that he’s settled in and knows where his college career is going.

“I just love everything about the coaching staff here,” he said. “As soon as I got the offer to come here, this is where I wanted to go. Junior college was an option out of Neumann-Goretti, and I also had some Division I offers.

“My parents and my personal trainers know what my skill set is,” Vespe added. “I can play point guard, but when I was at Neumann-Goretti they were having me play center because I was the most physical guy on the team. I’m 220 pounds, 6-foot-7, so I could hold my own against other centers. I was the tallest and biggest kid on the team, but I didn’t really get to show off all my skills. It was an easy decision to go the post-grad route.”

It might be tough to understand just how competitive the recruiting world is these days, especially for college basketball. Coaches are under enormous pressure to win, Vespe said, so they need players who can be impactful right away. How college coaches recruit has changed dramatically in the post-covid/ transfer portal era.

“There are a lot of guys I know who are in high school right now who are good enough to play Division I, but they can’t even get a spot in Division II because these coaches are under three- or four-year deals and they’ll get fired if they don’t produce. If they want to keep their job and they need to win, they’re not going to go recruit a kid out of high school, they want to get a kid who is already averaging 15 points per game in college and who can transfer in and help right away,” Vespe said. “They don’t want to wait,

St. Augustine Prep and Neumann-Goretti standout

because it’s their job on the line, and I don’t blame them. The transfer portal has 2,000 kids in it, so it was ridiculously hard (to find a place to play). All the kids getting an extra year, redshirt years, covid years — those scholarships that are supposed to be going to incoming freshmen just aren’t there.

“So, being able to get a Division I offer was a blessing,” he continued. “My IMG coaches told me averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds you’d pick up at least five-to-10 offers off that. FGCU was the first offer I had, and I was talking to my family and we knew the offer could be here now and gone in two weeks. They can easily give your offer to somebody in the transfer portal, so you don’t have much time to sit and think about it. It was a tough situation, but I’m happy with the way it worked out. This is a really good program.”

Vespe has some pretty good athletic genes, as his father, Will, a Gloucester Catholic graduate, played

baseball at the University of Miami before having a career in the minors with the Twins and Indians. Blaise said he is focusing on entrepreneurship as part of a business major and he may minor in broadcasting. He wants to continue to be around the sport of basketball when his college playing days are over — preferably on the professional level, but if that doesn’t come to fruition he said he’d love to get into broadcasting.

“Every minute I’ve played this year I feel like I’ve done pretty well,” Vespe said. “I’ve tried to make the most out of my minutes this year, even though they’ve been limited. We have a senior and junior-heavy team, but I have big goals for myself so I want to make a bigger impact next year. As the years go on, I’m expecting to take off.”

Contact Dave O’Sullivan:

sullyglorydays@gmail.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays

“FGCU was the first offer I had, and I was talking to my family and we knew the offer could be here now and gone in two weeks. They can easily give your offer to somebody in the transfer portal, so you don’t have much time to sit and think about it.”

Blaise Vespe

Former

South Jersey Glory Days Legends Series SHAWN SCANNELL Absegami

Wrestling / Class of 1996

By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Staff Writer

During the 1996 NJSIAA state wrestling championships at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, fans of Lakewood High superstar freshman 171-pounder Damion Hahn brought signs with them that foretold a future of four straight state individual championships. Hahn was expected to completely dominate the New Jersey wrestling landscape throughout his high school career, and largely he did, going 131-3 and winning three state titles.

The man who kept him from winning four has spent the past two decades sitting in the corner of dark high school wrestling mats in cramped gyms, trying to turn high school boys into standout wrestlers and stand-up young men. Shawn Scannell doesn’t look like the kind of guy who is a former New Jersey state champion. He has that cool hair, the almost perfect four-day scruff of beard; he wears stylish button-up dress shirts under vests. He doesn’t yell from the plastic coaching chair, he’s not foaming at the mouth like some other fire-breathing prep wrestling coaches who get all wound up on match nights.

Scannell is about as unassuming as it gets, and if you didn’t know any better you’d think he was just the dad of some kid on the JV team. But down in his basement — now that he had some time during the Covid-19 pandemic to get things organized — you can find an array of awards, a never-worn varsity jacket, some old VHS tapes and one gold medal from the 1996 NJSIAA state championships.

Scannell, a senior at the time, beat the great Damion Hahn and did something his older brother, Bob, fell just short of. Bob Scannell made it to the state final in 1986 but came up short, and it took 10 more years for the Scannell family to finally reach the top of the podium.

“I have a brother who is almost 10 years older than me and he is was a state finalist back in 1986, so I was always close to the sport and motivated to try to become a state champion. He was a big part of my journey and had a big influence on me. That was my goal once I got to high school — state champion or bust,” said Scannell, who this past spring stepped down as head coach at his alma mater, Absegami, where he led the Braves’ wrestling program for 21 years. “I don’t know that I felt I could win it when I

South Jersey Glory Days photos/Sully

Shawn Scannell won 107 bouts during his high school wrestling career, the final one coming at the state championships where he took down the legendary Damion Hahn, 2-1, to win the 171-pound title.

came in as a freshman, but I had a great support staff, great coaches. I had some people who worked behind the scenes. We used to do private lessons and different wrestling clubs. We would drive to Pennsylvania for more than two hours and train with kids out there.

“Mentally, I was not going to accept losing (as a senior). I had the mindset that I was going to train harder than anybody,” said Scannell, who finished his high school career with a 107-11 record before going on to become an All-American at Rider University. “I did a lot of extra training. I would run to school in the morning, we did a lot of extra workouts, we would travel to clubs in Pennsylvania. My mental mindset was, ‘you’re not losing.’ It’s hard to explain that to kids nowadays. But I had good people around me who showed me the importance of mental toughness and that mindset. I just programmed myself and put the work in. Sophomore year and on I did a lot of work in the offseason, in the summer, the fall. I played football, but I was still going to my wrestling

club and lifting. I was dedicated and I had great support. My parents were great, my brother — he was my hero, he guided me, he was a big influence and he was there every step of the way.”

Scannell remembers a loss that hit home, and in many ways spurred him to become a state champion.

“I was a sophomore, I was 20-0 and we were in the state playoffs. I had beaten a kid from Central Regional earlier in the year pretty badly, and when we wrestled again he hit me with a wacky spladle and pinned me,” Scannell recalls. “I was devastated. That was rough. I was an average youth wrestler, but I was around the sport since I was a baby, so I was taught from a young age about determination and drive. When I got to high school, I had to beat out a senior to get my spot, and from then on I just hated

See SCANNELL, Page 28

losing. That was it, I just didn’t like to lose. And that’s what drove me.”

That state championship bout against Hahn in 1996 was excruciating for Scannell. Hahn was an absolute beast, so Scannell knew there was going to be little chance to score a takedown. He had to figure out some way to score some points and then hold off one of the best freshmen in state history. After a scoreless first period, Scannell chose the defensive position to start the second. He hit a reversal right away for a two-point lead, then rode Hahn out the rest of the period. Scannell was banged for a stalling in the third period as Hahn cut the deficit to 2-1, but before he could give up another stalling call, time ran out and Scannell was a champion.

“I knew he had nothing to lose, and I had everything to lose. I was determined and knew I wasn’t going to lose that match, but I was definitely a little tight. I was good at winning close matches and holding leads,” Scannell explained. “In the third period, he chose neutral, and I was stalling my butt off. I wasn’t taking any chances. I tried to make it look good, but I got banged (for stalling). It got a little hairy at the end before time ran out. If I had to do it all over again, I wish was a little more loose.”

Scannell, now a 45-year-old teacher at Absegami High, remembers all kinds of emotions flooding over him in that moment.

“It’s one of the greatest moments of my life. The elation of that moment, knowing all your hard work and dedication, all your support and everything that everyone put into you — it’s joyous, but it’s also a relief. It’s something that I still, to this day, think about and envision. It’s something that will stay with me forever,” he said. “It’s one of the greatest moments of my life. It lived up to the hype. I had put a ton of work in, and I knew my brother came up short and that affected him, so I wanted to make him proud and get over the hump. They were holding up signs before the state final — and I still have one because my brother ripped it out of somebody’s hands — that said,

‘you’re looking at the first four-time state champ’ in New Jersey, so that was motivating.”

Scannell isn’t the type of guy who you’ll find at the local pub gushing about how great he was in high school and reliving his “glory days” all night, but when he does think back about his high school days a smile comes over his face. He said he had a great time at Absegami, playing sports and doing all the other normal things that high school kids do.

“It’s fun to talk about. I joke around with the guys I went to high school with. It was a great experience and I think about it all the time. I have three boys of my own and they wrestle. They don’t quite understand Boardwalk Hall yet, but it’s something I’ll never forget. It was a great moment. One of those moments you work hard for. Sometimes you get what you deserve and sometimes you don’t. It could have easily gone the other way,” Scannell said. “I had great friends in high school and not all of them wrestled. I had a few friends who were in it with me and were very supportive. I don’t feel like I missed out on anything. I had a great experience in high school. I played football and did all the normal things in the offseason, I just really buckled down during the wrestling season. I wouldn’t change anything. I had a great high school experience.”

These days, Scannell is coaching up his own kids in the sport and gets joy out of seeing their progression. He said

he hopes they can learn the same life lessons that wrestling bestowed upon him nearly 30 years ago.

“Wrestling is a very unforgiving sport, so I want my kids to get the good qualities out of it — discipline, hard work, mental toughness. Even if they are not great wrestlers I want them to learn those lessons to help them throughout their life,” he said. “I talk to my oldest son, who is 13, and I tell him ‘you don’t have to be the best wrestler, I just want you to understand these values that you will learn. They will take you far in life.’ Wrestling is the kind of sport where kids can really benefit from a lot of life lessons. I’ve always stressed that as a coach, we were always comparing wrestling to real life. You might have struggles, but if you’re tough you can get through it. If my kids are great wrestlers, that’s a bonus. They are working hard and I try not to put too much pressure on them. They seem to be enjoying it and getting those life lessons.”

In wrestling, things tend to come full circle, and that’s exactly what happened for Scannell and Hahn. Four years after that fateful day in Atlantic City, the pair met again in the NCAA Championships. This time, Hahn got his revenge, ending Scannell’s college career with a victory in the 2001 wrestlebacks.

“He was a four-time All-American in college who won two NCAA titles and he actually ended my college career,” Scannell said. “Last match in NCAAs,

he was at Minnesota. At university of Iowa, in wrestlebacks. It was a close match, but he got the better of me. He was very talented.”

Sometimes, on a rainy day, Scannell will find himself alone in the basement, rolling back the tape on great moments from the late 1990s. Wrestling seemingly is a part of his bloodstream, coursing through his veins as almost a sustaining life force. He loves the sport so much, but also laments in its decline at the high school level. Back in the day, an Absegami vs. Oakcrest match would pack the gym. These days, it’s over in 20 minutes as half the weight classes are forfeited. It’s a sign of the changing landscape of the sport.

“When I’m alone I just think how wrestling has been a part of my life for 40 years. I take a step back and look at all the accomplishments of the teams I was a part of and the history of our program, the future of the program. I’m very thankful because I’ve been in a good spot with a great support system for so long,” Scannell said. “I’ve had great assistant coaches. I also think about how the sport is changing and how I don’t love it. So it’s not always the gushing thoughts, sometimes it’s the ‘what’s going on here?’ thoughts. Everything is changing. So, it’s twofold. But there are definitely a lot of good memories.”

Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sullyglorydays@gmail.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays

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