Lannon latest Vanguard to reach 1,000 points

ASTON >> Kate Lannon couldn’t ignore the pomp and circumstance. She didn’t try to, either.

There were countdown tweets from the Sun Valley girls basketball Twitter account all week. Thirty-nine points away… 19 points away … eight points away from the big number.

Inside the home gymnasium, signs were constructed by Lannon’s teammates, congratulating her on a milestone she had not yet reached, though everyone knew it was only a matter of time.

“It’s funny because they actually put those up on Thursday,” Lannon said. “They didn’t know when I’d do it, but it showed that my team cared. We all love each other.”

Family and friends brought huge baloons with the number “1,000”. And yet Lannon, through all the hype, kept her cool.

“I’m only a junior,” she said, “I knew it would come at some point.”

But the anticipation was such all week — Sun Valley played three straight home games — that Lannon had to get there sooner rather than later. Her fans were expecting a celebration Saturday in Sun Valley’s nonleague game against Chester.

Lannon needed eight points. With 2:30 to go in the first half, she stood near the basket, fielded a pass and scored an easy two for points 999 and 1,000.  It was her first field goal of the game after scoring all of her previous points from the free-throw line.

Lannon eventually settled in — she was 0-for-7 from the field before her first bucket — and finished with a game-high 24 points and 17 rebounds in Sun Valley’s 52-41 victory over Chester.

 

Kate Lannon scores her 1,000th point. Apologies for low quality. pic.twitter.com/py1YXa0Tsh

— Matt Smith (@DTMattSmith) January 9, 2016

That’s just Lannon being Lannon.

After she got her 1,000th point, play was halted. Lannon was greeted with a group hug from teammates and immediately snapped a few pictures with her team and coach Frank Ridpath.

All those signs that were taped to the gymnasium walls earlier in the week were not a hex. Lannon got there on her own accord.  And her way was to not worry about it..

“I wanted to take it day by day” she said. “If I don’t get it today, no big deal, I can get it the next game. We just keep moving forward as a team. It’s not worth trying to be selfish with the ball. I knew I had to keep passing, keep getting my teammates involved and I knew the shots would come, things like that. I didn’t want to rush it.”

Lannon is the first Sun Valley girls basketball player to score 1,000 points since Gia DeAngelo in 2013. While they

never played together in high school, Lannon and DeAngelo are good pals. DeAngelo was in attendance for Lannon’s special moment.

“We are very close friends,” Lannon said. “She always used to play with my sister (Libby) so I’ve always known her. It was cool that she came back to see me get it. That was really nice of her.”

Speaking of Kate’s big sister, Saturday was Libby Lannon’s 21st birthday. Libby, a Cardinal O’Hara graduate, plays basketball at Ursinus.

“She had a game at 3 p.m. and then we’re probably going to celebrate up there for her 21st. She’s all excited,” Lannon said.

Ridpath has coached several of the nine Sun Valley girls basketball players that have accomplished this feat, but Lannon is in a special category.

“They’re all great kids, but with Kate, she works so hard for her points,” Ridpath said. “She gets so many of them on her own with offensive boards. We ask her to do so many things. We like to play the 2-3 zone because it allows her to be in the middle with the other team’s best post player. She can help the other two people underneath, anyone going baseline, and it leaves her in rebounding position. We ask her to do so many things, sometimes I feel bad for the kid because we have her doing everything. She even brings water for me everyday — she’s my water girl. She does everything on the court and she’s the watergirl.

“She’s very unselfish and she’s done it all with hard work — she’s a workhorse. She brings her hard hat, her lunchpal, and she goes to work.”

Sun Valley got out to a huge advantage (20-1) in the first half before Chester slowly mounted an admirable comeback attempt that fizzled in the fourth quarter. The Vanguards (6-7) saw their once-sizable lead dwindle to 10 points early in the fourth quarter, but a Maya Jacyszyn 3-pointer sparked a 9-0 run by the hosts.

Maddie Michael added 10 points for the Vanguards, who snapped a five-game losing streak. Point guard Claire Howley chipped in four points, five assists and two steals.

Cherokee Burton fronted Chester with 14 points.