City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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If Drexel head coach Amy Mallon was responsible for marketing her squad, the phrase “new and improved” might come to mind. The 2022-23 Dragons displayed a mixture of both in their season opener on Thursday night, to great effect.

There was the new: freshmen Grace O’Neill and Kylie Lavelle in the starting group, Hannah Nihill no longer in the lineup but watching intently from the third row, her eligibility exhausted after a stellar five-year career that saw her entrench her name all over the Dragons’ record book. (Tessa Brugler, another major piece from last year, is the new Director of Basketball Operations.)

And there was the improved: Keishana Washington, a 2021-22 all-CAA First Team selection and CAA Scholar-Athlete of the Year, looking better than ever; Maura ‘Furm’ Hendrixson, also in her fifth year with Drexel, fully recovered from an ACL injury she suffered near the end of the 2020-21 campaign. 

And it all added up to quite the successful evening: an 84-58 romp over Rider to open the season, with plenty of positives to takeaway for both the team and the energized crowd of more than 1,000 in attendance.

“I’m just really excited about this team win today,” Mallon said afterwards. “I’m just so proud of this group, especially Keishana and Furm — Maura, I’m sorry — I just think they showed up as leaders of this program, ready to go and prove that we’re capable of continuing to play.

“You know, we talk about building the foundation and some of the success we’ve had in the past, but to start on the right foot this year, I’m just really proud of their effort today.”

It took a few minutes for Drexel (1-0) to get comfortable on the Daskalakis Athletic Center court Thursday night, six months removed from a 28-win season that ended in the NIT quarterfinals. The first couple possessions featured a little bit of standing around, feeling things out, the realization that the season was underway just settling in.

Then Washington hit a couple shots, and the whole court seemed to open up for the Dragons, their star guard leading the way. The 5-foot-9 guard from Ontario scored a game-high 34, making 14 of her 22 shots, including 3-of-5 from deep; she was just about unstoppable with the ball in her hands, getting to the rim with ease in both transition and the half-court, hitting jumper after jumper when defenders had to respect her passing ability, blowing by them when they closed in, finishing six points shy of her career high.

“I think just looking to score kind of sets the tone, and then once I’m settled in, my teammates start looking to score,” said Washington, who averaged more than 19 points per game last year. “My mindset going into the games is to start off aggressive, instead of waiting to see how they’re guarding me, instead I’m the attacker and go at them and make them be the ones to adjust to me playing. 

“I think I did a great job of that tonight.”

“She’s a special player,” Mallon said. “The one thing about Keishana I know, and I told her this year, is that you’ve done everything you need to do, you’ve proven it, you’ve done it, so now you just need to show up and bring those others with you when you’re on the floor.”

Though Washington shined from start until she was lifted with just under eight minutes remaining, she was far from the only bright spot for the Dragons.

Hendrixson, who played 25 games in her injury last season, made it clear Thursday night she wasn’t quite herself last year as she worked her way back. The 5-10 guard out of Cardinal O’Hara was outstanding running the point for the Dragons, finishing with six points, seven assists, six rebounds and four steals in 27 minutes. She was all over the court, diving on the floor and mixing it up defensively, clearly a more confident and athletic guard than she was a year ago.

“Yeah, I definitely feel back to where I was before the injury,” she said. 

“I think she’s better,” Mallon added.

Lavelle, who showed something new seemingly every alternate possession, finished with 20 points and six rebounds, shooting 8-of-12 from the floor and making her only 3-point attempt, plus 3-of-4 from the line. The 6-foot-2 forward out of Riverside (Pa.), up in the Northeast part of the state, had 10 points and three boards in each half, making a variety of mid-range jumpers and finishing around the rim, running the floor and turning a few Hendrixson outlet passes into easy layups in transition.

“For a freshman to come in, especially [the] first game of the season [...] I don’t think we’ve had somebody do that since (2007), when Gabriela Marginian was the CAA Rookie of the Year,” said Mallon, who was then an assistant under Denise Dillon, taking over the program two years ago. “(Lavelle) came in and she’s really getting comfortable and I’d say for as much as we do on the floor as a team, she’s coachable and that piece right there, you just know she’s going to continue to get better. I’m really impressed.”

Kylie Lavelle (above, left) and Grace O'Neill both impressed in their Drexel debuts, both as starters. (Photo: Jack Verdeur/CoBL)

O’Neill, who missed a point-blank layup in the opening quarter, also quickly settled in; though she was playing more off the ball than on it at first, the Archbishop Carroll product ended up playing point more and more as the game went on, finishing with nine points (3-6 FG, 1-2 3PT, 2-2 FT), plus three rebounds and three assists — without a turnover — in 35 minutes.

Drexel also got quality minutes from junior forward Jasmine Valentine (6 points, 2 rebounds), Hetta Saatman (4 points, 3 rebounds), the only other members of the team to play more than eight minutes. 

The Dragons scored 20-plus points in each of the first three quarters but really turned the defense up in the second, turning what had been a five-point lead after one into a 47-29 halftime advantage, then slowly expanded that gap by the end of the game. They ended up forcing 17 turnovers by Rider (0-2), grabbing 13 steals and turning that into a 23-4 advantage in points off turnovers.

“I think that was the big difference-maker for us,” Mallon said. “We got to a point where we wore them down a little bit with that because they were getting looks, and they got some nice looks in our zone or our man, when we were switching it up, but I think the steals and the transition buckets, then you wear them down a little bit and then they get indecisive.”

Even with Washington watching from the bench for the last seven-plus minutes, the outcome clearly in hand, the Dragons continued to function well, scoring 12 points in the game’s final seven minutes to close out the victory.

They’ve got five days to prepare for their next game, a City 6 matchup at La Salle on Tuesday, with tipoff scheduled for noon at Tom Gola Arena. The Explorers, picked to finish second in the Atlantic 10, beat Sacred Heart 69-48 on Thursday night to improve to 1-1.

“I think it’s a test for us to see how we can take this win, soak it in and then move onto the next one,” Washington said. “We’re playing on the road so that’s also going to be a test for us. I think we’re excited.”