City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
––

RADNOR >> Calling Anna Reger “relentless” might be shortchanging her.

The Radnor junior is a three-sport athlete, a fireball of energy who radiates a competitive will to win no matter what sport she’s playing. Her future ultimately will be in lacrosse, but for the moment, the Raptors’ smallest player is asserting a mighty big influence on a District 1 Class 5A playoff run that is heading to a championship game.

Reger set the tone early and scored a clutch hoop late as No. 2 seed Radnor held off No. 6 Villa Maria Academy 40-32, sending the Raptors to their first district final since the 2013-2014 season.

“It motivates me more going into a game, knowing I have a challenge,” Reger said. “I’m one who wants to attack that challenge head-on.”

Reger was the catalyst on Friday, scoring 11 points to go with five rebounds, four assists, three steals and a block while playing outstanding defense on Villa Maria Academy’s standout junior Sophia Tray. If that wasn’t enough, the 5-foot-3 point guard didn’t get a second off the floor during the game, Radnor coach Rob Baxter knowing he could ill-afford to take her out and that she had enough fuel to do it.

While Reger was the generator, sophomore Bree Simpson was the prime beneficiary. The 6-foot forward turned in a stellar performance of her own, netting a game-high 16 points to go with eight rebounds. Her ability to run the floor opened a lot of things up for Radnor and fittingly it was Reger finding Simpson for a layup with a minute left to seal the win.

“Our pregame talk really helped, we were really motivated,” Simpson said. “Our coach told us we were the faster team, he said ‘Bree you need to run down the court and Anna, you need to look for her,’ so we were aware of where we were going to be on the court.”

Reger was a starter last year when the Raptors entered the Class 5A bracket as the No. 3 seed before losing their quarterfinal opener – to Villa Maria Academy – and ultimately making it to states as the No. 6 seed before losing to Archbishop Wood in the PIAA opening round. With three starters departing from that team, including a player Reger considers a mentor in Kate Gallagher, this year’s Radnor squad wasn’t sure what it was going to look like.

“I knew I definitely had to step up, we lost a lot of impact players, so my role was going to be much bigger,” Reger said. “Coming into the season, we were a little nervous after losing those seniors so we had to really work for it this year and everyone has stepped up and really helped us out.”

While she was busy tearing up the soccer pitch in the fall, Reger knew that she’d have to be a much larger presence in the winter and especially as a leader for a younger team. Radnor had a solid fall, but a one-goal loss to eventual state champion Strath Haven in the District 1 Class 3A semifinals added a little extra sting and a little more motivation as she shifted into point guard mode.

“Anna, she’s going to play the whole game, she handles the ball 95 percent of the time and she just never runs out of gas,” Baxter said. “She’s such a competitor, everything is a competition to her and it doesn’t matter what we’re doing, she’s the hardest worker at it.”

This fall also brought some clarity on her athletic future. Reger committed to play lacrosse at Dartmouth in September after getting a good feel for the school while her older sister Abigail, now a freshman, was going through the recruiting process to play soccer for the Ivy League institution.

Reger used to play basketball year-round, she noted that she and Tray – another exceptional lacrosse player who is committed to Loyola (MD) – actually used to be travel hoops teammates, but she gave it up when lacrosse became her main focus. She’s the first to point out she’s not the biggest player, so lacrosse just made the most sense and it certainly helped there’s plenty of carryover between the two

“My defense has come from lacrosse and basketball, it’s almost exactly the same,” Reger said. “It’s almost all footwork, watching people’s hips. That’s prepared me for basketball and basketball’s prepared me the same way for lacrosse.”

Reger hoops in a pair of Sabrina 1 shoes that are mostly pink, save for a swath of bright orange starting on the toe box and running along the upper arch and midsole. When the guard is in motion, the orange blurs almost make it look like her shoes are turning molten with the amount of kinetic energy she’s generating while flying around the court, something she did plenty of on Friday.

Sure, Radnor had already improved on its postseason run from a year ago but if there were any doubts that the Raptors were looking for more, Reger erased them in the first quarter. After eight minutes, Radnor led 9-4 while Reger either scoring or assisting every one of the nine points while poking away two steals and limiting Tray to just one basket on four shot attempts.

“We’ve struggled in the playoffs in the past and this year, I knew we could win this game,” Reger said. “It was up to me to come out strong and set the tone, I felt like that was really important.”

For the most part, it’s been Reger and Nyah Yao leading the way for Radnor this season. That makes sense, given that the two juniors are the returning starters from last year but Baxter knew if his team was going to make a run, it would need more than two contributors.

As the Raptors were starting warm-ups, Baxter pulled Simpson aside for a quick chat. He told the sophomore, who stands about 5-foot-11, that she was the fastest post player on the floor and to take advantage of it.

Simpson missed her first two shots, then made seven of her next eight including a layup off a feed from Reger to start the third quarter, a clutch putback with 2:11 left after Villa Maria had cut the lead to five and of course the clincher off another Reger dish. She played sparingly as a freshman, but Simpson knew she’d have a bigger role this season. What the sophomore didn’t expect was that her team would be at this point, at least not this year.

“Before the season, a lot of us including me, we didn’t think we would be that good,” Simpson said. “We lost three starters so I assumed we might be that good this year but we’d be better next year. I think it surprised us all how well we were doing but we learned not to be surprised anymore and to lean into it and embrace our individual strengths.

“That plays a big role, we’re each good at something individually and we’ve learned to play so we can emphasize those skills.”

Radnor led 19-12 at halftime behind seven from Reger and six each from Yao and Simpson. Simpson doubled her total in the third quarter while the Raptors held the Hurricanes to just six points, opening a 30-18 lead heading to the final frame.

Tray led VMA with 10 points, the junior playing equally as hard as her opposite and earning every one of them. Abby Ferry notched seven points, the senior turning it up in the fourth quarter with five straight points that helped the Hurricanes get within 30-25 in the midst of some chaos on the Radnor side offensively.

Reger, knowing her team was a little panicked, took charge with a determined drive from the right corner and along the baseline, depositing a layup to stem the tide. The junior laughed when it was pointed out she drives the lane like she would attack the goal in lacrosse.

“That moment, I saw that lane and I had to take it,” Reger said. “I think that really turned the quarter around for us. Lacrosse is the same way, if I see I have an alley, I’ll take it and just use my speed to either get to the goal or basket.”

Tray answered with a tough bucket but Simpson picked up her team again with her putback on the following possession.

The Raptors only have one senior in Riley d’Entremont, committed to Division III lacrosse powerhouse Gettysburg College, who has slid into a supporting role and chipped in nine tough rebounds and two assists on Friday. d’Entremont, Yao and Reger are all captains but Simpson said that when it’s time for someone to speak up, the players know it’s mostly likely going to come from Reger.

“She’s really motivating and she has this fire in her that nobody else does,” Simpson said. “In the fourth quarter when Villa started getting more points, we all got a little scared until Anna yelled at us a little bit. That got us pumping again and we all realized we had to step up.”

In lacrosse, Reger is naturally a midfielder so she can best utilize her two-way skills similar to what she does in basketball, but she shifted to defense last spring in the wake of an injury. It’s similar to what Gallagher, currently starting as a freshman midfielder at Army, did for Radnor the past few years so Reger had a pretty good model to follow this season.

She doesn’t show it, but Reger said she does get tired on the floor. At that point it becomes a “mental game” where she props herself up to get through the possession then resets to go at it again.

“I’m not playing to my height,” Reger said. “I’m motivating myself, I know I have to do extra to get what a lot of other players get and my speed helps as well.”

Radnor will face top-seeded Gwynedd Mercy Academy, a 55-40 winner over No. 4 Unionville, in the 5A title game on Tuesday at West Chester University’s Hollinger Fieldhouse. Reger will likely take another difficult defensive matchup in GMA junior Bailey Balkir, the AACA’s MVP, while having to navigate the Monarchs’ lengthy defenders and probably without much of a break.

Reger has a district title to her name, she was a huge contributor on defense as the Raptors won the Class 3A lacrosse title last spring over Conestoga before falling to the Pioneers in the state title game. That’s not going to make her any less competitive trying to get another one next week.

“It’s going to be a challenge, but we have to go in the same way we’ve gone into every game and play how we always play,” Reger said. “If we limit our turnovers and work together, I think it will go well.”

By Quarter

RADNOR 9 | 10 | 11 | 10 || 40

VILLA MARIA ACADEMY 4 | 8 | 6 | 14 || 32

Scoring

R: Bree Simpson 16, Anna Reger 11, Nyah Yao 9, Caroline Quinn 2, Mia Gjorven 1

VMA: Sophia Tray 10, Abby Ferry 7, Briella Romeo 6, Rebecca Croft 6, Erin Urbanski 2, Ava Broadhurst 1