City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
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Sure, size matters, but that doesn’t mean bigger is always better.

Ava Renninger can’t control that the first thing most people will think about her is that at 5-foot-6, she’s on the smaller side for a basketball player. What the Archbishop Wood senior can control is that the thing most people will think about her after seeing her play is how hard she works.

Bigger wasn’t better for Renninger, the tenacious point guard instead opting for a program that didn’t need her to be big, just the hardest worker she could be.

She made it official Tuesday afternoon by committing to coach Stephanie Gaitley and FDU, validating all that hard work by finding the right fit for her.

“They had my back from the start,” Renninger said. “They haven’t been off and on, they’ve always wanted me. It’s been a good fit, I felt like it was meant to be and I knew they wanted me to be there.

“They were sure on me and that’s what I wanted in a college and from a team.”

FDU was so interested in Renninger, the Knights offered her twice. Former FDU coach Angelika Szumilo extended Renninger her first offer around this time last summer but departed the program in April to take over the head role at Iona.

Soon after came Gaitley, who spent a year coaching high school in Ocean City after a highly successful 11-year run at Fordham before being named the Knights coach on April 21. Gaitley, a 1983 Villanova graduate, had to work quickly to get her staff in place and figure out this year’s recruiting class but that didn’t stop her from making sure Renninger knew she was still wanted in Hackensack starting in 2024.

“I went on a visit last June where they offered, it was good, but when Ang moved to Iona, I didn’t know where I stood with them,” Renninger said. “Gaitley reached out and wanted me to come on campus and she made it clear they still wanted me on their team.”

Gaitley offered Renninger on that visit at the tail end of June, just ahead of the July live periods. Renninger, who had also been talking to Canisius and Holy Cross and was planning on visiting both, went in open-minded but this past weekend playing at the Run 4 the Roses Classic in Kentucky with her Sideline Cancer AAU team, she knew nothing was going to top FDU.

“It was stress-free the last couple of games knowing I was set on where I was going,” Renninger said. “I let them know I was going to be committing and we were able to finally talk (Tuesday) when I got back.”

Archbishop Wood coach Mike McDonald didn’t need long to figure out the type of player Renninger was when she transferred to the Warminster school prior to her sophomore year. Renninger played her freshman year at Central Mountain High School in Mill Hall, putting up some outstanding numbers before her whole family relocated to lower Bucks County that summer.

Renninger’s hard-working mentality, her no-nonsense approach to the game and her willingness to be coached all stood out to McDonald right away. He was elated to see all those aspects were what FDU saw instead of viewing her as a guard on the smaller side.

“She’s a kid that keeps her head down, works really hard and puts in the time on her own. She does everything you’d need to do to play at the Division I level, especially being 5-foot-6,” McDonald said. “She puts in all that extra work on her own. I’m happy she found a spot because she’s really earned it.

“My guess is she’ll only continue to put in that work until she gets there and when she gets there because she’ll want to play. That’s the kind of kid you want to see succeed, the one doing all they can and making all the sacrifices to be the best basketball player she can be.”

Despite admitting she was a little quiet while trying to fit in that first year at Wood, Renninger settled into a key bench role helping the Vikings win the 2021-22 PIAA Class 4A title. She was off to a solid start this past campaign when a season-ending injury to senior co-captain and leading scorer Allie Fleming changed everything.

Renninger, the starting point guard, knew even more would be on her each game and it was time to measure up to the challenge and opportunity. She responded by playing her best in the postseason, capped by a masterful 21-point game in the PIAA 5A title game against South Fayette and leading the Vikings in scoring as they won their third straight state title, with a second team all-state selection following.

“I looked at it over the summer, knowing what I would need to do the next year and especially when Allie went out with the injury, I wanted to step up and help the team in whatever way I could,” Renninger said. “I tried to do the things we needed to help us win throughout the season.”

She’s always tried to out-work everybody else on the floor, any disadvantage in size negated by being a little more willing to get on the floor, to fight for a loose ball, to go up, jump and fight for rebounds anyway and going to Archbishop Wood showed that effort made a difference against top competition as well. The senior had always thought about playing at the next level, admitting that she did start by thinking big in terms of program or school size, so the validation that came from playing with the Vikings was uplifting.

“I started to realize I could do what I wanted to do my whole life, I just had to keep working for it,” Renninger said. “When I got offered, it hit me that I could actually go and play college basketball.”

As good as she’s been on the court for Wood, McDonald said she’s just as good off of it. Case in point, despite just getting back from Kentucky, she was at the the Philadelphia/Suburban Women’s Summer Basketball League in Horsham on Tuesday with 2023 grads Fleming, Lauren Tretter and Campbell McCloskey watching Delaney Finnegan take on Kara Meredith and Lindsay Tretter in their summer league game.

Renninger has also been named one of the team’s four captains for the coming season, a role that she’s grateful for and takes very seriously. She jumped right into it last month, helping Wood to a runner-up finish at the Best of Maryland , with McDonald adding he saw the exact same type of play from Renninger that was there in late March during the state tournament.

“It’s been a blessing for me to have someone like that come into the program,” McDonald said. “She’s a great kid with a great family that’s been supportive of the program since they’ve come in.

“She felt confident in being herself. I think she knew ‘Coach has given me the green light, my teammates are believing in me and giving me that green light,’ so she went out and found that confidence to be the best version of herself.”

In a move she wouldn’t have made a year ago as a newcomer at Wood, Renninger also stepped out of her comfort zone and played for the school’s girls’ flag football team this spring. Renninger, who played quarterback, said it was a lot harder than she expected it to be but playing alongside fellow rising senior captain Lauren Greer was pretty fun and trying to cover other players as a defensive back was good prep for the improvements she wants to make as a basketball defender.

Renninger hopes to contend for playing time right away at FDU although she’s mostly focused on finishing out her last AAU summer strong and getting back in the gym with Wood this fall to try and help the program to a fourth straight state title, something the Vikings have never done.

Bigger isn’t always better, something Renninger learned during her recruiting process and a lesson that led her to the right destination.

“It’s just finding the right fit for you,” Renninger said. “It doesn’t have to be the biggest school. It doesn’t have to be the biggest program. It has to be the school that wants you.”