City of Basketball Love

By CoBL Staff (@hooplove215)
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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — The Select Events circuit invaded the shore this weekend, as the Atlantic City Showcase brought several hundred grassroots teams from around the country down to the AC Convention Center. The event featured the Select Events P24 and S40 circuits, along with numerous Girls’ Under Armour, Hoop Group Showcase League and other teams in the mix. 

Here’s Pt. 3 of our recruiting coverage from the weekend:

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Select Events AC Showcase Coverage: Standouts | Notebook Pt. 1 | Notebook Pt. 2 | Notebook Pt. 3 

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Reginna Baker (2027 | Philly Legacy DeShields 17U)

Baker’s been a budding star the last two years at Neumann-Goretti, playing behind the impressive duo of 2025 grads Carryn Easley and Amya Scott. With Easley (Fordham) and Scott (Delaware State) off to their respective colleges, it’s Baker’s time to be one of the Saints’ leaders, and she feels ready for the role. 

She gave a lot of credit to N-G coach and Philly Legacy director Andrea Peterson for her development and finding her voice over the last couple years. 

“At first, I didn’t really talk as much, I came in shy as a freshman, I didn’t really want to overstep the juniors at one point,” Baker said. “But then it was like, sometimes I need to step up because maybe sometimes the juniors aren’t doing something right. She really helped me build my character as a human.

“She’s a really nice coach and she really knows what she’s talking about, she understands the game of basketball and she looks out for female hoopers too,” she added. “I want to be around people that bring up female hoopers.”

A 5-7 left-hander, Baker has been playing sort of a hybrid wing/forward role for the last couple years on an undersized Saints squad, which is coming off a PIAA 4A state championship. But she’s going to be a guard at the next level, and she’s working this summer on playing with the ball in her hands as much as humanly possible. 

Baker looked good on the ball in leading her team to a win over the PA Royals on Sunday morning, scoring 10 points, grabbing six rebounds and picking up two steals in a balanced offensive effort. 

She’s got a trio of offers in her pocket from Temple, Fairfield and Delaware. Baker said she’s excited about the ability to finally talk to the coaches directly without having to go through a coach or parent first on June 15. 

Bigger plans are ahead for the future.

“I’m going to keep developing as a leader, and just helping my team, lead them to another state championship,” she said, “and we’re going to get the city championship and the PCL championship.” — Josh Verlin

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Julia Sedora (2026 | Comets GUAA 17U)

While it’s her first and only summer with the Comets, Julia Sedora is already seeing plenty of benefits.

It’s a mutual feeling too as the rising senior from Red Lion Area has added another talented presence to their 17U GUAA roster. The May live period was a nice capper to what had been a good week for the physical 5-foot-8 guard.

Sedora picked up her first two Division I offers from Holy Cross and Rider then put together another nice weekend against some top competition.

“It’s been going really good,” Sedora said Saturday after the Comets downed NJ Rise Masonius. “My teammates love to share the ball, we just play good team basketball. It’s a lot of fun out there with them.”

Sedora played last season with Sideline Cancer but with a few players from her team either moving on or changing rosters, she wasn’t sure where it left her. Coming off a really strong junior year at Red Lion, Sedora started reaching out to other programs and when a family friend suggested the Comets, everything fell in place.

Julia isn’t the only Sedora playing with the Comets this summer either. Her younger sister Bekah has found a spot with the GUAA 15U team, both sisters looking to build off their first season playing together in high school.

She may be the newcomer, but Sedora has already fit in with her Comets teammates. Seeing she was being interviewed, Megan Ngo and Alexis Eberz gave their teammate a little hyping up as they walked by.

“It was a little bit of an adjustment just getting to know the girls but it was nothing too major,” Sedora said. “I feel like we all play similarly. We love to shoot the ball and I think we all shoot it well for the most part, so it’s all been going well.”

Sedora has also been reaping the benefits after just a few tournaments.

“It’s eye-opening, for me it had just been D-IIIs so it was like ‘this is actually happening,’” Sedora said. “It’s been pretty cool.”

She’s also one of the first players to have picked up an offer from new Rider coach Jackie Hartzell and her staff. Sedora said she was honored to be someone the Broncs staff saw as a potential building block in their first full recruiting class and it’s only more motivation for her to keep working this summer.

Aside from her first two Division I offers, she said it’s been eye-opening seeing the way some of her teammates are able to handle the ball and set each other up which is an area she’s really trying to sharpen before her senior year. 

“They’re all really unique in their own way,” Sedora said. “I’ve never seen ball handlers like that in high school basketball, what they do is crazy, so hopefully I can pick up some tips from them in practice.”

Sedora said she and her sister were the go-to players for a Red Lion team that went 26-4 and lost to Downingtown East in the first round of the PIAA Class 6A tournament but saw herself as more of a role player with Sideline Cancer last year and again this summer with the Comets.

What she does bring plenty of is physicality. After an ACL injury her freshman year of high school, Sedora fell in love with weightlifting during her rehab and recovery and she brings a very strong frame to the floor

“Obviously, I love to lift, I don’t know if you could tell,” Sedora said. “I kind of pride myself on that, I try to control what I can control and that’s usually boxing out or getting a loose ball or tie-up, that kind of stuff.”

She comes from an athletic family. Her parents Andy and Carolyn both played basketball at West Chester and her older brother Joe will play hoops for the Golden Rams next year after transferring from Penn State where he had walked on as a freshman.

“I’ll do my part and if it falls into place, then it falls into place,” Sedora said. “I would love to, it kind of runs in our family.”  — Andrew Robinson

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Charlotte Aldridge (2026 | Books & Basketball P24 17U)

With big-time plans ahead for herself and Downingtown East in 2025-26, Aldridge is working hard — on the court, yes, but also off it. The slender 6-0 wing knows that getting more physical is key for her if she wants to pull in her first scholarship offer, and that means hitting the weights and a diet change. 

Aldridge said she’d been working with a cousin of hers who’s a nutritionist as she tries to add to her frame this summer, and it’s meant eating as much food as she can manage. 

“It’s hard to put on weight, I just have fast metabolism, I eat so much but I just have been trying to put on weight and more muscle,” she said.  “I eat a lot of carbs before my games which I also think have been helping, [...] pasta before games, bagels in the morning before games. And then like, before a game I’ll eat an applesauce or an Uncrustable or something like that.”

Aldridge is playing this summer with BBA’s top group on the Select Events’ featured circuit. It’s a team she joined midway through last summer, a deep team with double-digit girls on the roster who all play at a high tempo under head coach Sherika Salmon, who played at Saint Peter’s and has coached at both the high school and college levels in the Garden State. 

That’s a switch for Aldridge from her winters at Downingtown East, where the Cougars are capable of running but also don’t mind slowing it down into the half court and running longer sets to get a good look. 

“I know I can play at both styles of basketball,” she said. “I can play fast-paced, but if I need to slow it down I can too. It’s nice to know that I can play both and I’ll be able to fit in wherever.”

Currently, Aldridge said she’s hearing from schools at all three levels, but didn’t name any specifics; she did mention that she’s still waiting on her first scholarship offer. A long wing, she’s serving as a 3-and-D specialist with BBA, but has played on and off the ball in her high school years. 

East is coming off a 24-6 season that ended in the PIAA 6A second round, following losses in the Ches-Mont championship game (to Downingtown West) and District 1 quarterfinals (to Central Bucks East). They won 20 games the year before, with most of the core intact for its third consecutive year. 

With Perkiomen Valley’s stranglehold on the district over and a number of other top teams graduating strong 2025 classes, Aldridge is hoping this is the year for the Cougars, and her first goal is the one that comes first on the schedule. 

“Winning Ches-Monts,” she said. “We won the regular season but we lost the tournament so I think winning the regular season, winning the tournament, getting past the District quarterfinals, past the second round of states. Just adding on and yeah, who knows where we’ll end up.” — Josh Verlin

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Naomi Crispin (2026 | Sideline Cancer Day 17U)
Crispin likes to joke she has to be good.

If her last name looks familiar, don’t worry, she gets that a lot too. She’s the daughter of former Penn State star and current Nittany Lions assistant coach Joe Crispin and Erin Crispin, a former women’s soccer player at Penn State, so naturally she found her way into sports.

Crispin may joke she didn’t have a choice, but she truly is pretty good and picked up her first offer college offers just prior to the live period.

“It’s really cool and exciting just to finally start it off,” Crispin said. “I know I have to figure things out soon so I’m just excited to be able to start that process.”

A 5-foot-5 point guard, Crispin plays her high school ball for St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy – a Class A school in Boalsburg just outside State College – and was a first team all-state selection this season as a junior. 

Crispin, who also scored her 1,000th point this season, picked up her first offer from West Chester prior to the weekend with the University of Alaska-Anchorage and Goldey-Beacom also extending offers soon after. Talking with WCU’s staff Crispin said their conversation fixated on her similarity to past players who ran the point for the Golden Rams.

“She compared me to one of their past point guards they had and she liked my shooting and my ability to handle the ball,” Crispin said. “I think they’re really willing to play with my type of style, which is really intriguing and their program seemed really nice. I haven’t been able to visit yet but I hope to soon.”

Crispin, who was also a second team all-state pick as a sophomore, does a nice job controlling the game from the point. She can handle and facilitate but she’s also a strong scorer able to get to the rim off the bounce to pair well with a consistent jump shot from the perimeter.

That ability to get to the rim, Crispin at one point slicing through the defense for an and-one in a win Saturday night, wasn’t necessarily there as a sophomore. As defenders started to focus on taking away her shooting, she developed counters and brought out more aspects of her game over the past year.

“I’ve worked on my handle more, when I first started playing basketball, I just focused mainly on my shooting,” Crispin said. “I’ve tried to bring up my court vision, my passing and my dribbling to go with that.

“Just being quick off the first step, that’s something I’ve tried to work on through speed and agility. It was something I had to improve on.”

Living in the same college town where her dad starred and now coaches, Crispin said it’s pretty common for people to recognize her by last name alone. Hoops isn’t the only family sport, Naomi adding that she also plays soccer like her mom but it definitely vaults to the forefront when she’s with her dad.

Her dad has helped her and her siblings from the time they picked up a ball.

“When I’m with him, it’s all basketball,” Crispin said. “I only started playing in seventh grade, so I haven’t done it that long, but I enjoy it. It’s fun, he has so many connections, if we go anywhere in State College he’s going to know at least 10 people.”

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Aneri McGalla (2026 | Team Northeast P24 17U)

McGalla’s used to high-level grassroots hoops. 

Two years ago, she played on the GUAA 15U circuit with the Comets, then spent last year on the 16U HGSL circuit with the Lady Runnin’ Rebels. Now with Team Northeast on the Select Events’ top circuit, she’s accustomed to seeing plenty of Division I coaches courtside to check out her team’s games. Emily McDonald, the No. 41 prospect in the ESPN rankings for the 2026 class, is the biggest draw, but it’s a group loaded with talent. 

“I’m somewhat used to it, but it’s different at the 17U level,” she said. “I didn’t play with the Comets last year, but I played with them the year before and it’s a whole ‘nother level at this point than it was when I was younger. It’s something you have to get used to with the speed of the game and everything, but it’s really enjoyable.”

A 5-10 wing out of Parkland High, McGalla was a starter on a Trojans squad that won 20 games, a District 11 6A title and advanced to the second round of the PIAA 6A tournament before losing to Central Dauphin. 

Though she’s a natural guard with good handles and the ability to shoot from beyond the arc, her ability to play physically inside has had her playing at the forward positions for both her high school and grassroots teams. She knocked down a 3-pointer and had a couple rebounds in a win Sunday over the Bay State Jaguars of the GUAA, a game that saw McDonald go for 20 while the rest of Team Northeast filled in around her.

“Shooting in transition is really important,” she said, “and also [...] coach Matt [Oswalt] places a huge emphasis for me on rebounding because as an undersized forward, you have to be able to rebound, especially over taller players, so that’s something he’s been hampering into me and I’ve been trying to improve on.”

A strong student with a weighted GPA over 4.0 and a near-1400 SAT score, McGalla said she’s considering law school down the line, further emphasizing the importance of landing a scholarship to play college basketball. 

“I was thinking of going into medicine,” she said, “but I’m not a big fan of blood or guts, so I decided that wasn’t the route to go. I’ve also thought about coaching, though, as well, so we’ll see.” — Josh Verlin

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