GA makes grade on and off court

The next week and a half is an important one for the Germantown Academy basketball Patriots.
They’re currently 6-1 in the Inter-Ac, matched in the loss column by both Malvern Prep and Episcopal Academy. As luck would have it, it’s those two that they play for the last two games of their conference slate. Penn Charter’s up first though, and while the Quakers are just 2-4 in the league, PC-GA nights are always fiesty.
That’s quite the set of hurdles to clear in order to wrap up what would be a fourth consecutive conference crown, but the Pats have the senior leadership to do it. Frankly, it’s all this group—Bailey Whitman, Gabe Alter, Devon Goodman, Eathyn Edwards, Joe Stinson, and Miraj Dudhat—really knows.
“There’s no playoffs,” Goodman said. “So all 10 games matter. We can’t take anyone lightly.
“We were in the same situation last year,” Goodman went on, referring to losses to Episcopal Academy in the first tour through the Inter-Ac. “We know how to win in the league this time around.”
Regardless of the result, this group will likely go down as one of GA’s finest. Already a part of three straight championship teams, they have the character to match.
When the grades rolled in before the Patriots’ senior-night win over Parkway Center City Saturday, coach Jim Fenerty saw something that he was particularly impressed by.
“We just got grades yesterday,” Fenerty said. “Every single one of those seniors is on the academic honor roll.”
It’s fitting, too, that Goodman, the team’s lone Division I prospect, is going to play college ball at the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania.
“Every single one,” he went on, “and that’s hard at GA. Academics here aren’t easy.”
He’s known all of them for quite a while too.
“Each of them started at GA in lower or middle school,” he said. “Sometimes in the Inter-Ac, people will think that you bring in these rent-a-players, but we don’t do that.
“We don’t cut corners when it comes to academics,” he said. “I’m really proud of them, regardless of what happens.”
The Penn Charter game is a Tuesday home tilt, and the Pats will take on Episcopal at home Friday before finishing their regular season the following Tuesday at Malvern Prep. GA is virtually guaranteed a spot in the independent school playoff, so their season won’t be over, but it would be a whole lot sweeter with a fourth straight title.
“The bottom line is that it’s still high school basketball,” Fenerty said, lending a little bit of perspective to the situation. “It’s still a great learning experience, and I’m very proud of the people that we have in our program.
“I’m really close with this group of seniors,” he went on. “They’ve made me look like a very good coach, which is a very difficult thing to do.
“I’m just really proud of them,” he repeated. “They’ve handled themselves with class no matter where we were. It’s what we build our program on.”