Lady Dutch basketball team handed out season awards
The St. Marys Area Lady Dutch basketball team recently held their end-of-season awards program to wrap up their successful 20232024 campaign.
Lady Dutch head coach Zane Adiyeh began by discussing the junior varsity team and their successful season. The Lady Dutch JV team finished with a 13-8 record and had a lot of good games.
Noteworthy games were the JV team’s 2625 road win over Warren in December, and their 36-25 win over ECC at home in January on the same night the varsity team also defeated the Lady Crusaders.
“We had a really good JV season,” Adiyeh said. “Everybody on the JV team grew and progressed throughout the season, which is the most important part of JV.”
Adiyeh also recognized Lydia Hershey not only for the great job she did as this season’s JV coach and varsity assistant, but also for her contributions at the junior high and elementary levels of the program over the past few years.
As for the varsity team’s season, Adiyeh noted that the team accomplished a lot of things this year that a St. Marys team has not achieved in a really long time.
The Lady Dutch finished their season with a record of 22-6, with Adiyeh remarking that hitting the 20-win mark for a high school team is a pretty big feat.
The Lady Dutch also finished in a three-way tie with ECC and Punxsutawney for the District 9 League title.
In March, the Lady Dutch defeated Punxsutawney for the District 9 4A championship.
“That’s obviously the big goal of every season, to win the district championship,” Adiyeh said. “This year it was a pretty big one.”
When the Lady Dutch won their last two titles, which came in back-to-back seasons, they did so by beating Clearfield in the championship game.
“This is the first time that we won the district championship and had to beat Punxsy to do it since the 2010-2011 season. It’s the first time we’ve beat Punxsy since that season,” Adiyeh said. “Last year, we played Punxsy in the district championship, had a really good game, and came up a little bit short. We had the opportunity to play them again and beat them this year. We beat them once in the regular season and in the district championship, so that was a big accomplishment.”
The Lady Dutch followed up winning the D9 championship with winning the third ever state playoff game in program history.
“We beat Highlands, who is a team from Pittsburgh from the WPIAL. That is a very big accomplishment for us,” Adiyeh said. “We played a state playoff game against a WPIAL team two years ago. We played Knoch. It didn’t go our way. They were very good. This is the first time we’ve won a game in the state tournament since the 20092010 season.”
Adiyeh added that Highlands played, and defeated, a lot of really good teams throughout the season.
“That was a huge accomplishment for our girls to be able to compete with this and beat them in the state playoffs,” Adiyeh said.
St. Marys Area’s season ended in the next round of the state playoffs when they faced eventual PIAA 4A girls’ state champion Blackhawk.
“They smoked every team. They were very, very good,” Adiyeh said of Blackhawk. “Even though we didn’t win that game, I’m still very proud of the girls for how they played in that game.”
Before handing out awards, Adiyeh took a moment to recognize the team’s statisticians, Nina Thompson and Alison Mertz.
“Nina and Mertz take their jobs very seriously,” Adiyeh said. “They take it just as serious as the girls who are playing, and we’re lucky to have them.”
Shifting focus to his players, Adiyeh handed out awards from the AML and D9 League. Jayssa Snelick and Maura Caskey were both named to the AML and D9 League all-star teams, with Snelick also named the D9 League MVP.
Three team awards were also presented, with the recipients being the team’s three seniors.
The first award, for Offensive MVP, went to Snelick.
“Jayssa had a huge year this year, especially offensively,” Adiyeh said.
Snelick scored 551 points on the season and finished her career with 1,143 points. She also had the second highest assist total on the team this season with 71.
Adiyeh noted that Snelick helped the team in a lot of ways during the season, not just on offense.
“Most games, she was the leading scorer. She had some big games. Even games where she wasn’t the leading scorer, other teams had to prepare for her and plan around her and pay a lot of attention to her. So even when she wasn’t the leading scorer, she was still doing a big part to open up her teammates and make our offense run smooth,” Adiyeh said.
Next, the award for Defensive Player of the Year was presented to Caskey.
“Maura finished the year with 225 rebounds,” Adiyeh said. “Maura was a tremendous rebounder.”
“Even when she doesn’t get the rebound, she’s boxing out and opening up the rebound for her other teammates,” Adiyeh added.
Caskey finished her career with 637 rebounds. She also had 18 blocked shots this season along with 100 assists.
Finally, the Coaches Award went to Alexa Schneider.
“There are some things that a player can do during a basketball game that don’t necessarily end up on the stat sheet that contribute a great deal to winning the game,” Adiyeh said.
Schneider made a lot of shots in clutch moments for the team throughout the season.
“Our big games against really good teams, even though she wasn’t the leading scorer in them, against ECC, against DCC, against Punxsy a couple of times, Alexa just had really good shot selection throughout the game,” Adiyeh said.
Schneider’s passing and ability to inbound the ball were also key to the team’s success this season.
“Alexa, for the last two years, was our inbounder for every sideline out of bounds inbound play, which is a big job,” Adiyeh said. “If you’ve ever done it before or watched a team who has struggled with it, it’s not easy. It kind of looked easy because we always got the ball in, but if you watched enough high school basketball, there are some teams who struggled with that.”
“She had 10 turnovers for the entire season, which is insane, especially with having those responsibilities inbounding the ball,” Adiyeh said. “A player could have a tough game and have 10 turnovers in a single game. She had 10 turnovers over 28 games, the entire season, with those responsibilities.”
Schneider also helped coach at the elementary level the past few seasons.
“We had a lot of the younger girls come out and come to the varsity games and check it out because they wanted to come see Alexa,” Adiyeh said.
After handing out the individual awards, Adiyeh announced that all members of the team would be receiving a varsity letter.
“A lot of teams ended their season a month earlier than us. We played all the way into the middle of March. For our JV girls to not only contribute to all the winning and all the varsity stuff throughout the regular season but stick around and be at all the practices and scrimmages and contribute to our winning in the postseason, they had to sacrifice some of their spring sports and their time even though they knew they weren’t probably going to get much playing time in the playoff games,” Adiyeh said. “I decided that everybody’s earned a varsity letter this year because everyone contributed to the success we had in varsity this year.”
Members of the team receiving varsity letters were Braelyn Beck, Taylor Gornati, Jaiden Mattivi, Sam Kahnell, Sophia Surra, Zoe Romanic, Karli Frantz, Molly Hanslovan, Raechel Braun, Chloe Schaberl, Jayssa Snelick, Maura Caskey, and Alexa Schneider.
“We had an incredible season,” Adiyeh said in closing. “All of you grew throughout the season and got a lot better. I’m very proud of all of you for how you played, whether you played in JV or varsity, and for your hard work and commitment, and dedication, and effort the entire season.”