All-Delco Girls Basketball Player of the Year: O’Hara’s Nihill found inspiration all around

MARPLE >> Cardinal O’Hara junior Hannah Nihill didn’t have a big brother or sister to inspire her to play basketball at an early age, but that didn’t mean she was without influences.

“I looked up to a lot of people,” Nihill said, “but mostly Kerri Shields and Alyssa Monaghan.”

That makes perfect sense.

Shields was the Daily Times Player of the Year in 2008. She led Archbishop Carroll to the PIAA Class AAA championship in her senior year in 2009 and played at Boston College.

“She was a great guard,” Nihill said. “It was easy to look up to her.”

Anyone who sees Nihill is often reminded of Monaghan, the great Bonner & Prendergast guard who recently wrapped up a successful freshman season

at Saint Joseph’s.

Nihill went head to head with Monaghan in high school and their paths crossed several times as members of the Comets girls basketball organization.

Nihill is the driving force that propelled the Lions into the PIAA Class AAAA championship game for the second time in program history. With her tremendous court savvy and ability to ooh and aah in the blink of an eye, Nihill became the model point guard in Delaware County, a player cut from the same cloth as Monaghan, a three-time All-Delco and 2015 Daily Times Player of the Year.

It was no surprise, then, to see Nihill assume the mantle from Monaghan and become the 2016 Daily Times Player of the Year.

Joining Nihill on the All-Delco team, which is selected after consultation with local girls basketball coaches, are Cardinal O’Hara teammates Mary Sheehan and Kenzie Gardler, Garnet Valley’s Maddie Ireland, Penn Wood’s Dahnye Redd and Delco Christian’s Siani McNeil.

Nihill, Sheehan and Redd are All-Delcos for a second consecutive year. In addition to Nihill, Sheehan, Gardler and Redd, who finished her senior campaign with the highest scoring average (21.5) of any player in the county, were all considered for the Player of the Year honor.

As a youngster, Nihill was cognizant of her basketball abilities. She always had the “it” factor to be something great.

“When I was younger, my parents just knew,” Nihill said.  “I was playing in all these youth leagues and I guess you could tell that most kids weren’t as good. I always had a ball in my hand, always dribbling out in my backyard and doing push-ups. Basketball was just something I knew I could do.”

Nihill’s dad, Brian, was a baseball player at Bonner. Her cousin is Houston Texans quarterback Tom Savage, who was an All-Delco at O’Hara.

“We’re pretty close, but nowadays we don’t talk a lot,” Nihill said. “He’s a little busy.”

Nihill was busy in 2015-16 helping the Lions to a 26-4 record and a trip to the state final. The loss to three-time PIAA champion Cumberland Valley was a valuable learning experience.

“They’re a really, really good team,” Nihill said. “To learn from how they play, we have to know for next year,  if we get back to that game, we have to go into it not doubting ourselves and know that we can play to the best of our ability.”

Nihill, who is bound for Drexel in two years, scored 11 points per game. On a team with her good buddies Sheehan and Gardler, Nihill doesn’t have to shoot 30 times for the Lions to succeed. Sheehan and Gardler, as well as Maura Hendrixson, who earned second-team All-Delco honors, are all capable of carrying the team. It’s the balance of first-rate talent that made O’Hara so fun to watch this season. And they get to do it all over again one more time next season.

Nihill does things that most players her height and age cannot accomplish. She is a lot like Monaghan in that way, an undersized guard that goes above the call and leaves it all on the floor, bewildering opponents with her smooth dribbling and penchant for making defenders look silly. And Nihill seems to make everyone around her better, which is a defining trait in a Player of the Year winner.

“Some of the shots she makes, and some of the stuff that she does on the court, especially at her height, is so impressive,” Sheehan said. “She plays bigger than she is. You don’t see girls at her height throw herself the way she does. I still don’t know how she does it sometimes. There’s times she makes a shot that doesn’t look like it has a chance to go in, but it ends up rolling in. You kind of just watch it and go, ‘OK, wow.’ It’s really nice to have that on your side, I guess.”

Nihill’s season was an emotional one. She dedicated every game, every win, every amazing shot to her little sister Sydney, who is battling cancer. O’Hara rallied around the Nihill family in support of Sydney, selling t-shirts that donned the slogan, “Go Lions! Beat Cancer.” All of it touched Hannah beyond words.

At this point, it’s Sydney’s fight that drives Nihill to be great. Next season, her last in a Lions uniform, expects to be even more special than the one that recently past.

“Knowing how young we are, and how far we’ve come together, we just keep saying now that we know next year is our year,” Nihill said. “Since we’ll be basically the same team that’s returning next year, we’re not satisfied. We still have unfinished business.”