City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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(Ed. Note: This story is part of 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 2022-23 season preview coverage. The complete list of schools previewed thus far can be found here.)

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Faith Christian girls basketball coach Dave Forker had a ‘Fab Five’ of sorts arrive at the varsity level four seasons ago.

A group of freshmen with a history of success together in middle school joined the Lions in 2019-20 with hopes of eventually leading FCA to new heights.

The Class of 2023 has seen some members come and go, but now Forker has a group of five seniors ready for one final ride together this season.

“We always come back to eighth grade year, so maybe we can repeat that with our core five that we’ve always had since middle school,” said senior Bella Forker, Dave’s daughter. “I think that will strengthen us this year.”

FCA did indeed reach new heights last season with its first District 1 title and a run to the PIAA Class A quarterfinals.

Bella Forker and classmates Kendall Garber and Mikayla Hissner lead the FCA core group. Bella Forker, a Merrimack College commitment, was the Bicentennial Athletic League Constitution Division Player of the Year and a first team all-league selection. Garber and Hissner were All-BAL Constitution honorable mentions.

Senior Ava Lopez is another piece from the Class of 2023, and senior Maddy Huber played in South Carolina the past two seasons, but she rejoins them for one final ride this season. 

“That’s always been the core group coming up that’s been the heart and soul of everything,” Dave Forker said.

The Lions won last season’s Bicentennial Athletic League championship, 36-35, on a buzzer beater three by Emily Brownell. Brownwell and first team All-BAL Constitution selection Joy Hissner will be key pieces to replace, particularly their outside shooting.

Junior Autumn Landis and sophomore Maddy Bowersock are two Lions pegged to step into bigger roles and junior Brooke Picciotti, who comes over from Pennridge, is another who should help fill the void.

“Our two biggest shooters were our seniors,” Bella Forker said. “But I think we can compensate for that with the rest of us five these seniors and even Autumn, one of our juniors, I think she’ll be able to hit a lot of threes for us too.”

Garber said Bella will have to lead the offensive charge.

“Bella’s she’s always a good scorer, but she’s been getting really unselfish,” Garber said. “Just having Bella be a little more selfish and a few of our juniors coming up are going to play a big role in our shooting.”

Coach and players also agree the defensive end will be the team’s bread-and-butter.

“Our defense is going to have a big role in it,” Garber said. “We love offense, obviously, scoring but it always starts on defense for us. We get a good stop and we’re up and going and the other team that we’re playing just has no idea what hit them because we’re so fast in transition. That’s something that we really hit on in practice too.”

“Last year, with our depth with some of the players that were stepping up at the end of the year giving me more options, we were really getting after teams and suffocating them defensively,” Dave Forker said. “And we’re going to have to do that even more this year without the shooters and the scorers that we lost.”

FCA finished with a 26-5 record in 2021-22, including a 10-0 mark in the BAL. After securing a league championship, the Lions knocked off long thorn-in-the-side Jenkintown in the District 1 Class A championship for their first district title last season. 

They followed that historic milestone up with two convincing victories in the PIAA Class A tournament to reach the state quarterfinals. It marked FCA’s first state playoff victory since 2017 and deepest run in recent history.

“Winning districts kind of lit a fire under all of us and we wanted to win after that,” Garber said. “We knew we were going to make a run in states.”

“We got together and our chemistry was insane,” Bella Forker said. “That was the best season we had.”

This season presents a new challenge as FCA makes the jump to Class 2A, though there are still some familiar faces within the district’s classification, which is made mostly of BAL schools.

But with ambitions of another District 1 title and beyond, the task will be tall.

“We loved our rivalry with Jenkintown, so we’ll definitely miss that and the other schools in single A and at the state level it will be harder,” Dave Forker said.

“We were healthy and when we got to states (last year), that’s when we were playing our best basketball. Hopefully we can find a way to do that again,” he added.

He knows he has a special group to do it.

“I will miss them greatly. They’re really good basketball players,” Dave Forker said. “They do anything you want them to do, but they have a really cool chemistry on and off the court. They have fun playing together. The parents are awesome. He’ll do his best to make sure he doesn’t get in their way.

“There’s no negatives to coaching this group in any way, only positives and it’s just really cool to stand back and watch their chemistry. A lot of times they’re talking together during the game, seeing stuff on their own, just tweaking stuff and I try not to overcoach them because to be honest yes they’ll need some direction, but they don’t need me to overcoach them. It’s a really good group.”