Three for 1,000: Upper Dublin’s Vargas, GA’s Haynes and West’s Burke all reach milestone over weekend
It took less than 48 hours this past weekend to add three new names to the 1,000-point scorer’s club.
Central Bucks West senior Maddie Burke got there first, hitting a near-buzzer beating 3-pointer against archrival Central Bucks East with Upper Dublin senior Jackie Vargas joining not long after at the foul line against Hatboro-Horsham. Germantown Academy senior Jaye Haynes would have to wait a little while longer but she too gained membership on Sunday on an and-one play against Holly Springs in the She Got Game Classic.
Three different players, three different ways to do it but the trio all ended up on the same list.
“It represents who I am as a basketball player, but I don’t think it defines me,” Vargas said. “It’s a great achievement and it represents my career but winning a state championship and some of the other things the team has accomplished are way more important. It’s a nice individual accolade but in the end, what you can celebrate with your team and how far you can go with your team is way better.”
A 6-foot-3 center heading to Lehigh next year, Vargas has not been knows as a scoring machine in her time at Upper Dublin. It also wouldn’t be accurate to simply measure her impact with just point totals anyway given the massive impact she has on the defensive side of the ball.
Vargas has been a first-team All-State pick the last two seasons and was a key cog in Upper Dublin’s PIAA 6A championship during the 2017-2018 campaign when she was a sophomore. It was right around that time that the center started to think about the 1,000-point mark and if she’d ever reach it.
“I remember when I was a sophomore looking up at the banner and thinking ‘I’m probably not going to have my name up there’ and I was fine with that,” Vargas said. “I wasn’t trying to score 3,000 points just to get my name up there.”
The senior said the fact she was still able to get praise and recognition for what she did as an all-around player from blocks and rebounds to passing and screening for teammates was all the validation she needed that she was helping her team.
With a trip to Arizona for the Nike Tournament of Champions this week, UD coach Morgan Funsten wanted to try and get Vargas to the milestone at home before the trip. It meant Vargas getting the ball a lot more than she was used to and eventually, a career-high 28 points.
It would all come down to a moment at the foul line.
“I knew people knew I was close and everybody was excited but I didn’t know they had all the pictures, poster and balloons so the fact everyone else was prepared and ready to run out when it happened was very nice,” Vargas said. “I feel like a lot of people get their 1,000th at the foul line for some reason, it was a one-and-one so if I missed the first one, I didn’t get another one. It was great because I got it and then didn’t have to worry about it for the rest of time.”
Like Vargas, Burke and Haynes have also been four-year mainstays in their respective team’s lineups. Both have also seen their roles grow with each passing season and are now looked at as leaders for the Bucks and Patriots.
From the time she started playing basketball, Haynes envisioned herself as a 1,000-point scorer and she had the perfect guide through the process. Her father, former Villanova point guard Jonathan Haynes, scored his 1,000 point as a high school junior and tried to give Jaye the right blueprint.
Jaye called her father her biggest inspiration as a player and as soon as she got home Sunday night, they shared their mutual accomplishment.
“As soon as we walked in the door, he grabbed his 1,000th point ball and we took a picture we sent out to everyone in our family,” Jaye said. “To follow in his footsteps, it meant the world to me I got to share that with him.”
Haynes entered the season 101 points away from 1,000 and during Sunday’s game, was keeping a mental countdown. As the game got tighter, the guard, who has committed to play at La Salle, admitted to losing track for a moment.
But when she drove to the basket, got fouled and had the shot drop, it didn’t take long to realize the deed was done.
“It was a really close game, so it was a momentum switch,” Haynes said. “As soon as I hit the shot, I thought ‘number one, I’m pretty sure I just hit 1,000 by my teammates’ reaction and number two, we’re back in this game.’
“I knew it in the moment, I think I realized it first but as soon as everyone started celebrating, that’s when I knew it was real.”
Haynes has scored at least 13 points in every game this season and etched her name into a very long and distinguished list of GA players to have reached the milestone. The guard called it a blessing to be among that list which includes names like Maggie Lucas, Joey Rhoads and Caroline Doty and players who have been Haynes’ teammates like Rachel Balzer.
While the senior knew she’d get to 1,000 at some point, she was relieved to get it over with so quickly. Now she can turn her attention to a pair of other goals. First, she wants to help classmate Elle Stauffer get her 1,000th point and second, see if she can help the Patriots to another Inter-Ac title and back-to-back PAISAA titles.
“It was the icing on top of the cake hitting my 1,000th but now that I’ve done it, it’s what can I do to help my team,” Haynes said. “I want to try to average more than three assists a game, it’s what can I do in other areas instead of just the scoring aspect.
“Elle and I knew we would both hit 1,000 and it wasn’t a priority to see who hit it first but we talked about how cool it would be to have the opportunity to do it in the same season.”
An exceptional shooter, Burke has found herself the focal point of opposing defenses on a nightly basis and in those moments, readily defers to her more open teammates. In the team’s second game of the season, she was limited to just three points but by not forcing the issue, helped West top Abington.
Needing 13 points going into Friday’s game with East, Burke also needed a little prodding to take the shot that put her over the 1,000-point threshold. When the ball came to her, she didn’t think twice and hit all net a couple seconds before the final buzzer of a Bucks win.
“Emily Spratt came up to me and said ‘shoot the ball when you get it,’ I realized I was close but I didn’t realize I was that close,” Burke said. “Someone told Emily and Emily told me. There was about 10 seconds left, we had an inbound play where I faded off a screen and she passed me the ball so I just shot it. I needed three to get 1,000 so it was perfect.”
Burke, who envisioned adding her name to the 1,000-point banner at West as soon as she entered the program, felt the way she hit the milestone couldn’t have been better. She entered the season needing just 32 points, but true to her nature, didn’t try to force shots up in West’s first two games.
She thanked the students who packed the gym for creating the environment and her teammates, especially Spratt, for giving her the last push to go and get it.
“The fact I got it in such a cool way, at home against our rival school, it was a great experience,” Burke said. “I was in shock, I didn’t even know what to think, I just kept smiling. It was awesome.”
The senior has signed with Penn State and while she’s excited for the next step, Burke feels like there’s something special brewing with the Bucks. First-year head coach Zach Sibel has brought a lot of energy and the tight-knit team is starting to put the pieces together.
“We’re all just really positive,” Burke said. “If a bad play happens, we just pick each other up and move on the next one, so that’s always a good thing to have.”
Three players hit three different shots in less than 48 hours to all reach the 1,000-point career milestone, but Jackie Vargas, Jaye Haynes and Maddie Burke have already turned their attention to the considerable amount of season left in front of them.
“It’s not like it’s about me, it’s about the team,” Burke said. “I’m always going to be more focused on what I can do to help my team win.”
