City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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FORT WASHINGTON — The play is called Flagg, after Duke freshman sensation Cooper Flagg. 

It’s simple enough: set a screen up top, have someone roll to the basket, the point guard lobbing it ahead of the defense to the roller, who’s got to make an athletic play to catch and finish ahead of the collapsing defense. 

Upper Dublin coach Morgan Funsten saw the Blue Devils run it early in the season, and thought he had the perfect player to run it for: sophomore wing Tamia Clark. 

At 5-foot-8, Clark might be a foot (and change) shorter than Flagg, the wunderkind expected to be the top pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. But she runs it so well, Duke might as well start calling it 'Clark.'

“She has such great hands and such great body control,” Funsten said. “She’s always balanced and she can finish through contact, she can elevate over people and she’s got a soft touch around the basket. You combine all of those things, and it’s one of the features she has that makes her very special.”

The Cardinals ran the play to perfection multiple times in an inter-division Suburban One League clash on Saturday afternoon, as Clark piled up a game-high 17 points in Upper Dublin’s dominant 58-26 showing against North Penn. 

No fewer than three of Clark’s buckets came off that play, most of the feeds coming off the hands of junior point guard Megan Ngo. Clark, in her second year as a starter for a young-but-highly-dangerous Upper Dublin squad, was finishing everything at the rim, going  7-of-11 from the floor and 3-of-4 from the foul line to lead three Cardinals in double figures. 

Though she’s somewhat late to basketball, only taking the sport seriously starting in seventh grade, Clark said that ability to score around the hoop was something that came instantly.

“My dad noticed that I’m really good at jumping, so I just tried to use that to my ability,” she said. “As long as I jump, I know I can at least draw a foul.”

Clark gave credit to her father Norman Clark, who played high school hoops at Cheltenham, for getting her interested in the sport, after she grew tired of her first primary sport, running: “I started getting bored of running around, just doing the same thing,” she said. “I just picked basketball because everything is different — you can always make a new play, you can get a steal, there’s always something you can do.”

As a freshman last year, Clark started all season long for Upper Dublin (4-1), which won 24 games last year, its season ending in the opening round of the PIAA Class 6A tournament. She was one of two freshmen to play major roles, along with 5-11 forward Bridget DiMartile, who went from top reserve to a starter late in the season after Ngo went down with a knee injury.

Though she was only in her third year of playing competitive hoops, Clark said she wasn’t nervous, giving credit to Ngo and older sister Amy Ngo, now a freshman at Holy Family, for help getting her acclimated.

“I think in practice I was prepared enough, and the seniors being there really really helped, just calming us down and getting a good feel for the game,” she said. [They said] ‘just play your game, don’t let people speed you up. Just be a good teammate and get good shots.’”

She was certainly primed to play a major role for the Cardinals this season, Funsten without a senior in the starting lineup. Clark said she spent the offseason working on her jump shot with former Villanova and Niagara wing Bilal Benn, among other trainers, and though she didn’t need to display her jumper against North Penn, she did so during multiple preseason events, hitting from both mid-range and beyond the 3-point arc. 

“She needs to look for that shot sometimes,” Funsten said, “because I know last year teams would play off her sometimes, and she’s capable of making them pay.”

Upper Dublin had no issue from near or far against North Penn, going 22-of-37 from the floor while hitting 6-of-11 from 3-point range. Junior wing Emilia Coleman connected on 3-of-4 from deep, the Division I recruit going for 15 points with five rebounds as well as an assist, steal and block. 

Megan Ngo didn’t score, the junior guard and FDU commit taking only one shot as she continues to work her way back from that February ACL tear. But she dished out eight assists and grabbed two steals and two rebounds and provided the steadying on-court presence the Cardinals missed last February, when they lost their final four games of the year, three in the district seeding rounds and then in the first round of states. 

“It’s a great feeling to have her back and her passes and her scoring, it’s nice to see her playing like herself again,” Clark said. 

Lexi Ngo, a 5-0 freshman and the youngest of the Ngo sisters, came off the bench for 10 points, including a clean catch-and-shoot 3 off a Coleman feed in the third quarter and a tough and-one in the fourth. Fellow freshman Ella Morris, who starts for UD, finished with six points, two assists, two steals and a block; DiMartile added six points, four rebounds and three steals. 

North Penn (2-3) got eight points off the bench from freshman Paityn Debro. 

With the win, Upper Dublin showed why it’s the Suburban One League favorites and has a chance to be playing several rounds into March, though there are a few other teams in District 1 and the Catholic League that will provide stiff competition in both the district and state brackets. But the lack of seniors means this is a group that has two years left to play together, and the future looks very bright, indeed.

“I think today was probably the most complete game we’ve played,” Funsten said, “and it’s a little preview of the special type of team that we can be.”

By Quarter
UD:  13  |  17  |  21  |   7   ||  58
NP:   6   |   2   |   5   |  13  ||  26

Shooting
UD: 22-37 FG (6-11 3PT), 8-11 FT
NP: 12-37 FG (0-8 3PT), 2-3 FT

Scoring
UD: Tamia Clark 17, Emilia Coleman 15, Lexi Ngo 10, Ella Morris 6, Bridget DiMartile 6, Kaitlyn Zacharia 3, Maeve Hogan 1

NP: Paityn Debro 8, Jadyn Sperling 6, Lily Brown 6, Cam Crowley 4, Tallie Smink 2