She wouldn’t tell you, but she’s the best
Danielle Boiago is McMaster’s all-time leading scorer
When she tipped in the rebound right before the half, she knew it gave her the record.
A fan had let Danielle Boiago know about the stats before the game. Thirteen points on Saturday night and she’d be McMaster’s all-time leading scorer. This basket put her over the top. She wasn’t making a big deal about it. More correctly, she was making no deal of it at all. She’d gone radio silence on it so successfully that some of her teammates didn’t even realize history was looming until the PA announcer was congratulating her.
Those points were huge, though. They cemented Boiago’s place as the best-ever female basketball player to suit up for the Marauders. “I wouldn’t say I’m the best ever,” she says.
Fair enough. Best is subjective. Who’s to say a point guard is better than a centre is better than a power forward is better than a shooting guard? But she’ll at least acknowledge she’s now the best scorer ever, right? Silence.
Well, she is. When that basket went in — as part of a 73-51 win over Carleton — the 23-year-old took over top spot on the school’s all-time scoring chart. Capping a remarkable climb that’s seen her pass maroon legends Hailey Milligan, Chiara Rocca, Taylor Smith and Taylor Chiarot this year alone.
“Those are high-calibre players,” she says.
Yes, they are. And now she’s ahead of all of them.
Her historic basket was the exclamation point on a remarkable couple days for Mac basketball.
On Friday night, the men’s team knocked off nationally secondranked Ottawa 96-90. It was the first win over a top-three opponent since Amos Connolly took over as head coach for the 2010-11 season.
Prior to the game, the Marauders had been 0-for-their-last-12 in those contests.
The fact that they lost 74-65 the next night to third-ranked — and perennial powerhouse — Carleton didn’t take the shine off the achievement.
Rather, it showed that if the Marauders perform as they can, the fourth-seeded squad has the potential to be a significant player in the national championship tournament.
“I think how we competed this weekend should be a statement to ourselves that we’re in that mix,” Connolly says.
But it was Boiago who stole the weekend.
The St. Thomas More grad — who’s McMaster’s defending female athlete of the year and team MVP — says she doesn’t have a f avourite basket she’s scored. There’s no buzzer-beater or game-winner that comes to mind. No half-court heave or off-balance three-pointer that pops into her memory.
Makes sense. There are roughly 600 buckets and threes (plus free throws) from which to choose. They tend to blend together.
Does she remember the first one, at least? “No,” she says after a long pause. OK, does she recall if it was in her first game? “I honestly can’t tell you.” Hmm. Does she know if they won that game? “We did.” That she remembers. Which says something about her priorities.
Even as she was going out of her way not to point the spotlight at herself, she did allow herself to boast about one thing a bit. A Hamiltonian still holds the record at the Hamilton school.
She chose to stay home and play here. As did Chiarot, who’d been holding the mark. And Smith who had the record before her. As someone who says she wants to be a positive role model for girls and young female basketball players, that matters to Boiago.
She’ll likely be able to cling to that claim for a while, too.
Now with 1,293 career points after her 16-point outing on Saturday, she’s got four games to go, then playoffs. Plus, she’s planning on coming back for a fifth season. By the time that’s done, her lead could easily be an astounding 500 points. Maybe pushing 600. Nobody will ever touch that, right?
She simply smiles and shrugs. Then insists it’s a nice mark to have, but not the nicest thing she could achieve.
“What I want most is a national championship,” she says.