City of Basketball Love

By Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
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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 2023-24 season preview coverage. The complete list of schools previewed thus far can be found here.)

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High expectations and keeping standards come with the territory at Archbishop Carroll, no matter how the season prior went.

Granted, last season went pretty well for Carroll, at least by the end. To many, the Patriots were the surprise of last year’s PIAA playoffs as they knocked off quality team after quality team before capping it with a 6A state title over until-then undefeated Cedar Cliff. While there’s some reloading to do, there’s some lineage in place to do it.

As for any new expectations that come from being a defending state champion, just add them to the list.

“Playing for Carroll and having Carroll on your shirt, I think most people — no matter how we did the previous season — expect us to be a powerhouse,” Patriots senior Brooke Wilson said. “We’re very fortunate for it. I always say we have the best coaches in the area and it’s a privilege to wear Carroll on our uniform.”

Carroll returns just two starters, but they’re pretty good ones to start around. Wilson, who is taking a gap year from playing with her older sister Taylor before they reunite at Army next season, and sophomore Alexis Eberz were lineup mainstays playing their best by last March. No matter who is on the floor, head coach Renie Shields and her staff do an excellent job of having their players prepared and they have a good roster to work with.

Filling in around them are a couple of role players moving up, a mix of newcomers and players with familiar last names looking to get their first names known the same way. Among them is junior Kate O’Neill – her older sister Grace, an all-state point guard at Carroll about to start her sophomore year at Drexel – a reserve player last season who figures to see an increased role.

“We’re all really competitive and I think that comes from a lot of us having siblings that have gone through the program or push us to be more competitive,” O’Neill said. “Even though for some of us, basketball isn’t our main thing, you still always want to win and play a major role in how Carroll does this year.”

Wilson and O’Neill aren’t the only ones who share a little lineage. Bridget Grant, a sophomore, is the younger sister of Villanova guard Maggie Grant and incoming freshman Kate Schumacher’s older sister Courtland was a starting guard last season now playing field hockey at Fairfield.

The sisterly theme also extends to the team’s newest additions. Sisters Felicity, Maddie and Abigail McFillin all come into the program this year, with senior Felicity and junior Maddie transferring from Harriton to join Abigail, a freshman, for one year all together.

While Wilson and Eberz are the only leftover starters, they aren’t the only ones with pivotal experience. Junior Olivia Nardi found a niche as the first player off the bench last year and figures to be in the mix for a starting spot and increased role and O’Neill played in a high number of games off the bench.

Junior Brooke Olender had a nice summer with her Comets team, while Wilson noted junior Bridget Archbold as another teammate who has put in plenty of time. Julia Craskey rounds out the team’s senior class alongside Wilson and Felicity McFillin.

“We still need to work on our defense, but so does every team going into the season, and communicating,” Wilson said. “We’re also learning how to play off each other. This is kind of a new team, so we still have to learn each other’s strengths and be aware of the game but that comes with getting to know each other.”

Losing Taylor Wilson, who was Carroll’s post by default and often guarded up against the opposition’s taller players, leaves a void on both ends of the court. But she isn’t the only loss that the Patriots have to fill. Courtland Schumacher and Meg Sheridan (Pitt lacrosse) weren’t usually the team’s lead scorers, but they both understood the value of a selfless role player, putting their efforts into defense, hustle plays, passing and an occasional key basket.

Kate O’Neill, who has been making plenty of those types of plays in the fall run-up to the season, explained that’s yet another part of the expectation that comes with the Carroll uniform.

“This group is really special,” O’Neill said. “Everyone wants to win and everyone wants to get better.”

The Patriots will play the usual challenging slate of games. Their schedule last year was a large part of the reason the team never got on a sustained winning streak until states, on top of the usual PCL gauntlet. Carroll, which finished fourth in the standings last winter, should be part of a mix of teams that have a case to contend for a trip to the Palestra in late February.

“Last year, we played some of the best teams in the country,” O’Neill said. “Playing the best, I’d rather play those games than one we’re going to win by 40 because that makes us get better. That’s what allowed us to win last year.”

There’s no need to tell Archbishop Carroll about the expectations coming into a new season. Defending state champion or not, they already know all about them.

“It shows you that if you’re working hard and come back to the gym every day ready to work, it’ll end well,” Wilson said. “We started 0-5, lost every ‘hard’ game we played so you’d think we’d come into practice like ‘we’re done for’ or when we lost the PCL semis that we’d have no chance of winning 6A states, but no.

“It lit a fire under us every day and it shows how to be resilient and how to come back stronger and stronger.”