City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADrobinson3)
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At this point, there’s nothing Casey Harter can do that will surprise Lynn Carroll.

In four years coaching Harter at Souderton, Carroll saw the point guard transform from a defensive specialist hesitant to shoot to a legitimate Division I prospect. Harter eventually chose Northwestern and Carroll knew it was only a matter of time before she was not only getting minutes, but contributing in them.

That time has come quickly, Harter now starting for the Wildcats and turning in one of her better games of the season thus far in Thursday’s 72-68 win over Temple at the Liacouras Center.

“It was amazing,” Harter said after the game. “A lot of people came out, my high school team, my family, it’s great to be back here and I’m so glad our coaches scheduled this game.”

Harter finished Thursday’s game with 13 points, including an important pair of late free throws, five rebounds, four assists and a block in 35 minutes. 

The schedule couldn’t have worked out better for Carrroll. With Souderton not having a game, the entire team and coaching staff made the trip to Broad Street to watch the former all-state guard do her thing.

Harter wasn’t part of the program yet in 2018 when Carroll and Souderton won a District 1 6A title in the same building. Seeing one of her former players, one surely at the top of the short list of most talented and even shorter list of hardest working she ever coached, play that well was on par with that championship for the Souderton coach.

“She played great, she had so many people there to see her, she’s playing with so much confidence, it was awesome,” Carroll said. “It was really, really cool for our girls to experience that.”

When the Wildcats schedule came out, a lot of eyes would have looked for their bigger games like the two Big Ten meetings with Iowa and Caitlyn Clark, or an early season matchup with nationally ranked Florida State. It was Dec. 21 that stuck out immediately to Harter, a chance at a homecoming before Christmas of her freshman year.

She was not expecting the welcome she got. By tip-off, the entire Souderton team had made its way behind the Northwestern bench and gave the freshman a rousing ovation when her name was announced as a starter.

“I didn’t even know they were coming,” Harter said. “I heard from some of the players that they were bringing a whole bus down in the middle of the school day. It’s the best team.

“We had a great run last year with the high school and being able to see all of them again, it was just awesome.”

Souderton is a different team this year, a much younger one that’s shown some expected growing pains with just one win thus far. Senior Brooke Fenchel played three seasons with Harter and few were around her for a year or two in practice but the squad’s freshman didn’t have the same opportunity.

It’s why giving her current team that close look as someone who’d come in like them, wide-eyed and a little unsure of themselves then identified what they wanted, went and got it was so important for Carroll. She can extoll Casey Harter’s legendary work ethic, intensity and motor all she wants but actually seeing the kid do it in person was a lesson that couldn’t be duplicated.

“We like to talk about kids who come through your program and make a lasting impact long after they’ve gone, Casey is one of those kids,” Carroll said. “Our freshmen, we have a lot of them and a lot of them playing varsity, so to see her playing well at a very, very high level, it’s possible. You can do it, you can go out and do it if you have the work ethic and really want to make it happen.

“That’s how Casey goes about life, by going hard at all she does and reaching her potential in every way that she can.”

When she committed, Harter said she hoped to find some playing time early through her defense. Arriving on campus in Evanston, Illinois over the summer for workouts and joining the team for its overseas trip to Spain, Harter seemed due for at least a role in longtime coach Joe McKeown’s rotation.

The season started that way, Harter coming off the bench in the team’s first eight games but with her minute count rising along the way. After playing the equivalent to starter’s minutes in the last four of those, Harter finally got the starting nod on December 10 in Northwestern’s Big Ten opener at nationally-ranked Maryland.

“When I first saw this game on the schedule, I just thought ‘cool, we’re playing Temple, I’ll be able to go see all my family,’” Harter said. “It just happened to be that the coaches were playing me more and it became an amazing opportunity for me.”

Harter has played at least 31 minutes each of the last four games, all starts, and five of the last six overall. Her season averages aren’t overwhelming, the first-year guard currently at 7.0 ppg, 2.6 rpg and 2 apg but that’s not telling of how she’s done overall, with an assist to turnover ratio that's nearly 2-1.

Defense has always been Harter’s calling card. At 5-foot-11 with a long wingspan, Harter was able to cover any manner of player playing for Souderton or the Comets. It felt fitting that coming from two programs so foundationally merited on their defense would lead her to another program with that core philosophy.

Jumping from high school or travel to any level of college is a dramatic leap but at least one area has felt like a little easier of a transition thanks to her upbringing within the sport.

“Defense, being able to stay in front of my girl and playing help defense,” Harter said. “We run a couple different defenses so I’m getting them down pretty well.”

Watching Harter on Thursday, Carroll was also struck by how different Harter looks as a shooter from five years ago. In her first year of high school, Harter rarely shot threes. She hasn’t put a lot up this season, but she is hitting at 40 percent.

“I’ve watched a lot of their games and she does not look like a freshman out there,” Carroll said. “She prepares herself, she has been preparing herself for years, her body was ready to take on this kind of a role from working really hard, being in shape and being strong.

“If she can accomplish it, she is going to. That’s a big part of what the coaching staff saw in her.”

A four-year starter in high school, which included district playoff runs and state games, helped prep Harter for starting in college, as did playing top-level games on the GUAA circuit over the summer with the Comets.

The Wildcats have been up-and-down so far, Thursday’s win moved them to 5-7 and even seeing her role change, Harter is taking all of it in stride.“We’re going through some adversity where some of the games have been a little rough for us, but I feel like with each game, we’re growing,” Harter said. “We’re fixing things and I feel like each game it gets better and better. I love this team and coming here as a freshman, I didn’t know what to expect, but it’s just been awesome.”

Harter isn’t the only Philly-area transplant in the Wildcats’ program. Senior Paige Mott, a team captain, is an Abington Friends alum who has been at Northwestern all the way through while graduate guard Maggie Pina, a Notre Dame Academy alum, opted to take her fifth year in Evanston after a terrific career at Boston University.

Mott’s sort of been the team mom for Harter and the roster at large, while she and Pina share a bond as Comets alums. Harter didn’t know Pina due to being a few years apart but Comets director Linda Genther helped make the connection and now Harter, Pina, Mott and a couple others within the program have formed their own clique that watches the Eagles play every week.

“There’s a lot of us,” Harter said. “If we’re not watching together, we’re texting each other through the games for all the Philly sports.”

Harter’s second start came against DePaul, which pitted her against another alum and Pina against a former teammate in Maeve McErlane, a sophomore for the Blue Demons who also graduated from Notre Dame.

“We had her on the scout, I thought this was so funny, I grew up watching her because she was on the older Comets team,” Harter said. “It was just so cool to play against her and see her there with me.”

Harter isn’t someone to be self-aggrandizing, she’d approach her role the same way if she were still getting six to eight minutes a game instead of playing 35. So whether Harter will or won’t on her own, Carroll will gladly ask anyone who doubted Harter after she committed to Northwestern what they think now.

“She felt like there were doubters and there were moments last season where it was hard for her,” Carroll said. “She made a mistake in one of our games and she’s worried about what other people are thinking. ‘Oh, that’s Casey Harter? She’s going to be playing at Northwestern next year?’ That was something she had to overcome and she did.

“There were definitely doubters and I think she’s quieted them all at this point and made it very clear she can play in that conference and do well.”

Before leaving Temple on Thursday, Harter met with her old team and posed for a photo, sitting on the Liacouras Center court with Souderton’s program surrounding her. Northwestern may not venture this way too many times in her career but however far away Harter may be, she’ll always know a lot of people back home are there for her.

With conference play starting in full as the new year comes in, Harter’s not going to change anything. It’s got her this far as is, so it’s clearly been working.

“Play hard every second I’m in, we can ask for subs if we need a break,” Harter said. “I think playing hard every second, rebounding and trying to set my teammates up so we can have the most success.”