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Prepping for Preps ’21-22: Neumann-Goretti (Girls)

11/16/2021, 12:30am EST
By Joseph Santoliquito

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)

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(Ed. Note: This story is the latest in CoBL’s “Prepping for Preps” series, which will take a look at many of the top high school programs in the region as part of our 2021-22 season preview coverage. As we publish more, the complete list of schools previewed will be found here.)


Coach Andrea Peterson has grown accustomed to winning at Neumann-Goretti. In 2015, she was named the national Naismith Coach of the Year, after leading the Saints to a 31-0 record, their first state championship in girls’ basketball and universally accepted as the No. 1 team in the country.

In 2021, not much has changed.

Peterson has since guided the Saints to three more PIAA Class 3A state championships, for a total of four (2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018), as she enters her eighth season she maintains the same standards.

The Saints played eight games last season, before their season was short-circuited due to COVID-19.  

Neumann-Goretti plays in a hot cauldron, like all teams in the Philadelphia Catholic League, which won three of the six state titles last spring: Cardinal O’Hara in 5A over Chartiers Valley (51-27); Archbishop Wood, which beat O’Hara in the Catholic League finals, in 4A over Villa Maria (44-34) and West Catholic in 3A over Mohawk (67-56).

The Saints will be tiny, young and exceptionally fast. Sharp-shooting 5-5 senior guard Mihjae Hayes is the den mother to a group that will rely on full-court defensive pressure and transition basketball to win. Hayes will be joined by 5-9 junior forwards Amirah Hackney and Saneaj Tyler, 5-9 sophomore forward Brooke Barnes and 5-10 senior D’Ayzha Atkinson.

The most intriguing piece to the Saints will be a pair of 5-5 freshmen guards, Carryn Easley and Amaya Scott, a gym rat duo who love the game and are interchangeable. They can shoot, they can handle, they can drive.

“We’re young and when you have a leader like Mihjae, it makes everything easier, because everyone wants to learn and they all want to get better,” Peterson said. “Easley and Scott are best friends, and they’re going to be special. Rebounding could be an issue, because we are small, but we’ll change things.

“We’re going to win by running up and down the floor. We’re still a 3A program, and didn’t have a chance to play West Catholic last year. With COVID, these girls felt that they had their season taken away from them. Mihjae is the heart of the city and she was second-team all-Catholic. She deserved better. She got robbed point blank—put that in.

“People need to start respecting players like Mihjae, and she’s going to handle business. We’re going to be a lot different team in January and February than we are.”

Hayes knows speed will be the key.

“We have the talent to be Catholic League and state champ good, and I’ve been around Carryn and Amaya, it seems like, since they were little babies,” Hayes said. “Catholic League teams don’t know what’s coming with those two. They’re going to wake everyone up.

“We’re little, so we’re going to have to out-run everybody. Off the court, we bond and these girls are all like my little sisters.”

Easley feels the talent is here. She also likes playing in big games, before big crowds.

“I’m ready and if we share the ball and get everybody involved, we’re going to be good,” Easley said.

With Scott, Easley and Hayes, it will be difficult to press the Saints.

“If teams try to pressure us, we have three guards who can handle the ball,” Scott said. “We will be small, but we will also be fast.”

Barnes saw substantial time as a sophomore last year. “It would be tough to press us, because we can have as many as four players who handle the ball and blow by anyone,” she said.

Hackney was bothered by playing in a mask last season and then having the season taken away. “We know people look at us as underdogs, and we’re going to be a good team that progresses throughout the season,” Hackney said. “Teams are going to come at our freshmen, and they think they’re weak and that they can intimidate them.

“That would be a mistake. We’re going to surprise some people. We thought we got robbed last year when they took our season away. Now we have to go and get it back.”

Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on Twitter here.

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