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Jenkintown's Mizzoni follows winding path to Widener

06/24/2021, 10:00am EDT
By Ryan Coyle


Sean Mizzoni (above) missed most of his senior year with a broken wrist but came back at the right time. (Photo courtesy Mizzoni family)

Ryan Coyle (@ryancoyle35)

Throughout his four years of high school basketball, Widener commit Sean Mizzoni has had his fair share of ups and downs. The road he traveled has never been the smoothest and the path certainly hasn’t been the straightest, but the Jenkintown standout wouldn’t be the player he is today without the trials and tribulations he went through. 

“I’ve been through a lot in these four years,” Mizzoni said. “When I look back on it, those experiences I had not only made me into the basketball player that I am today, but the person as well.” 

After growing up in Jenkintown and playing basketball with the neighborhood kids during his youth, Mizzoni opted not to attend Jenkintown High School, whose enrollment is less than 300 kids, but instead pursue greener pastures and go to La Salle College High School for his high school career instead.

La Salle, which competes in the ultra-competitive Philadelphia Catholic League and is known as one of the better academic institutions in the Philadelphia area, is where Mizzoni called home for his first two years of high school. 

Coming from a large family that had family members attend La Salle including cousins, uncles, and his two older brothers, the Widner pledge had a little extra push from his family to be an Explorer as well. Pair that with the opportunity to play in the PCL is what pushed Mizzoni to attend the Wyndmoor, Pa. school.

“I had a bit of a family push to go there,” he said. Then with that and the thought of the basketball being good there too, I was thinking I wanted to play basketball in college, so of course I wanted to go there where I had the chance to go against better competition.” 

During his freshman year, Mizzoni played for the freshman team and during his sophomore year he was a starter on the JV squad and part of the program that advanced all the way to the PCL title game. But, during those first two years playing in the La Salle program, Mizzoni failed to see any varsity time. 

Going into his junior year, the 6-foot-tall guard decided he wanted a fresh start and a new opportunity, as well as a chance to get to play with his childhood friends again. 

“He had some friends on the team from when he was growing up and he was looking for a new opportunity, so he wound up coming back,” Jenkintown head coach Wes Emme said. 

Mizzoni, a talented player in his own right, was stuck behind future Division I players such as Allen Powell (Rider), Konrad Kizka (Princeton), and Zach Crisler (Rice/Fairfield), and was never able to crack the varsity rotation. He thought a change of scenery was what he needed in order to reach his goal of being a collegiate athlete.

“(La Salle) wasn’t really a good fit for me,” Mizzoni said. “I wanted to go back to more people that I knew and grew up with, and play with them again.”

When Mizzoni got back to Jenkintown for his junior year, he was forced to sit out the first few weeks of the season due to the PIAA transfer rule. Once he was eligible to begin playing for the Drakes, he made his presence felt immediately. 

“He started for us from day one and made an immediate impact,” Emme said. “A really athletic kid, shoots the ball extremely well, very tough, guards people.” 

Mizzoni’s debut season came to an end though at the end of the regular season due to the PIAA transfer rule not allowing him to play in the district playoffs. In his first season in the Bicentennial Athletic League, Mizzoni established himself as one of the top guards in the league, became one of the leaders for the Drakes, and was ready to make a big leap for his senior season. 

Then, as well known, in March of 2020 COVID changed everything. While Mizzoni wasn’t able to play throughout the whole spring and most of the summer with his East Coast Power AAU team due to the pandemic, he felt like he made the most of the shutdown and really improved his game. 

 “I think that time off was really beneficial for me,” he said. “When COVID hit, me and a few of my friends were just like ‘alright it’s time to hit the gym let’s do what we can’ and we wound up lifting a lot and putting on some pounds. Then when AAU came back around, I was able to really shine with all the work I put in during that time.”

Around early August is when Mizzoni and his East Coast Power team started playing in tournaments again and he caught the attention of a few Division III Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) schools in Kings College, Wilkes University, and his new home of Widener.

In the late summer/early fall months, Widener held a prospect camp and Mizzoni really caught the eye of his new head coach Chris Carideo

“Coach Carideo saw him at a tournament and at a team camp and loved the type of player he is,” Emme said, “and I think it is a really good match.”

During early December, Mizzoni made the call to Carideo and committed to play for the Pride starting this fall. Carideo, the Pride’s 15th-year boss, has seen plenty of success in the MAC, going 213-157 (.576) in his time there. Widener won the MAC Commonwealth regular-season championship in 2019-20; Carideo’s led Widener to a trio of NCAA Tournament appearances, last coming in 2008-09, but has seen MAC regular-season and ECAC postseason success since then.

After about a week of practice in early December, due to the spike in COVID cases in the area, the BAL shut athletics down and they were set to resume right after the new year struck. During that off time, Mizzoni was working out and making sure he stayed ready for when practice was set to start up. About a week before practice was set to start up again, Emme got a call from Mizzoni with some bad news.

“Right before we were supposed to come back, I get a phone call from Sean and he told me that he broke his wrist working out,” Emme said. “We thought it would be four-to-six weeks and then we would get him back. But, he wound up having surgery and needed pins put in his wrist. At that point we didn’t think we were going to have him back.”

After Mizzoni found out that his wrist was broken, he was immediately worried that he might not have an opportunity to play for Widener anymore and would lose his spot on the team. He called Carideo that night to tell him what happened. 

“He made me feel really good about it, he was just saying how it wasn’t a crazy injury, it was my off hand, and just that I was going to be in a cast for a few months,” Mizzoni said. “He made me feel good. He was still confident in me.”

Despite the injury and the cast on his left arm (his off-hand), Mizzoni made sure he was at every practice, doing what he could to stay ready incase he had the chance to suit up again during his last season of basketball. He was at every practice, doing cardio, taking form shots, supporting his teammates, according to Emme. 

On the day of Jenkintown’s PIAA District 1 1A playoff game against Faith Christian, Emme got another call from Mizzoni, this time with some better news.

“I get a call the day of our district playoff game and it is from Sean and he goes ‘Coach, the doctor cleared me’,” Emme said. “So then I started running through scenarios in my mind, like ‘wow am I going to play this kid?’. Then, I decided, I have to play him.”

After having no live practice on the court, no contact drills, just some individual skill work and cardio activity, Mizzoni came off the bench for the Drakes in their 49-39 win over Faith Christian on March 8 and within ten seconds of being in nailed a shot from beyond the arc.

“I didn’t know what to expect when I got out there,” Mizzzoni said, “but it was really cool when I got in the game and literally like ten seconds in I hit a three and the whole bench went wild. It was an awesome experience for me.”

“It was just a huge emotional boost for the team,” Emme said. “Everyone on the team respected him, knew the type of player that he is.” 

Jenkintown fell to Phil-Mont Christian three days later in the district final, putting the end to Mizzoni’s rollercoaster ride of a high school career. 

When asked what he learned throughout his high school, Mizzoni knew just the word to describe it. 

“A word to describe my high school experience would definitely be perseverance.”

Despite his limited playing experience on the hardwood for Jenkintown, Mizzoni made his mark and will look to continue bringing that perseverance to Widener this fall.

“He was a major part of our team and our program over the past two years and we were fortunate that he came back,” Emme said. 


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