By Young Se Choi ’18, Staff Writer

Led by senior captains, Jocelyn Willoughby ’16 and Karina Mehta ’16, the girls’ basketball team started the year 19-0, coming up with big wins against elite basketball programs, such as Shabazz and Newark Tech. It was an especially staggering start compared to last season, when the girls’ basketball team struggled to maintain a .500 record. Despite a tough end-of-season slide that saw the team lose six out of their final seven games, the team nonetheless put together an amazing season and has a bright future ahead of them with a strong youthful base.

The team had a number of convincing wins, an especially strong one coming against Newark Tech, where the team won by a whopping twenty-one points. Jocelyn scored 32 points and 11 rebounds to go along with four blocks and four steals while Mehta also chipped in 14 points.

Jocelyn, who helped drive the team for much of the season, was one of the best players in the conference, averaging 22.7 points per contest along with 12.7 rebounds and 3.7 blocks. As a result of her dominant performances, inside and outside of Newark Academy, she was nominated for the McDonalds All-American game, an all-star game that showcases elite high school basketball graduates from the United States and Canada; fewer than 50 players in the entire country are nominated for this event. Moreover, Jocelyn, who recently committed to the University of Virginia, is a top prospect in the 2016 class and is ranked as a five-star recruit, the No. 8 wing in the country, and the No. 47 player overall in ESPN’s Top 100. Although expectations were high, as NJ.com placed her on the 2015-16 Preseason Player of the Year Watch, Jocelyn embraced the role and tackled these expectations. Other notable performers from this season include junior guard, Isabelle Catabran, and senior forward and captain, Karina Mehta. Both players averaged close to 10 points per game along with 2 steals. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak to Jocelyn about the girls’ basketball team’s success. Jocelyn stated: “Compared to last year, we had much better chemistry on and off the court. I had a lot of fun playing with them. Last year was the first year that we went under .500 in five or six years so we were looking to bounce back and I think we did that.”

I also had the opportunity to talk to freshman guard Sam Keller ’19, who said that the success of the girls’ basketball team lay ironically in the small size of the roster: “Although most people viewed the size of our team as a weakness, I think the smaller team was actually one of our strengths this season. Because we only had eight girls, each player was very familiar with how their teammates played, and could therefore use each other’s strengths to benefit the whole team. “

Every successful team has an equally successful leader, and Jocelyn proved to be a true mentor and captain on and off the court. When asked about her leadership role on the team she responded: “In practice, I always tried to point out different aspects that could make the team improve. I was injured for the majority of last year, and when I sat on the bench, I acted almost as an assistant coach for the team. And I think I learned how to become a better leader when I was in that role. I also think that if I make a player better, it can make the whole team better.” Not only did Jocelyn mention how she became a leader in practice, but she also noted how she became more of a team leader in the games. “If I wasn’t having the best scoring games I focused more on how I could get more rebounds or how I could get my teammates involved. Overall, I tried to be an all-around player and fill up the entirety of the stat sheet rather than one portion of it.”

Teammate Sam Keller agreed with what Jocelyn said. She also elaborated on the point by saying, “Jocelyn and Karina were leaders both on and off the court. From a freshman’s point of view, playing with Jocelyn was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Because she is full of so much knowledge on the game of basketball, I personally learned so much from playing with her. The success of our team would be impossible without Jocelyn’s and Karina’s leadership.”

In the NA community, the girls’ basketball team did not go unnoticed. Meghna Padmanabhan ’17 commented, “The team this year was obviously really strong; I think if you ask anyone they’ll say that. With Jocelyn back this year and a great group of younger players, they were dominant and I definitely believe that people around school saw this, too.”

Although Jocelyn may have been the centerpiece of the team’s success, with the presence of strong freshmen and sophomores, Maria Armas, Ivy Bethea, Kyra Cooperman, Molly Feldman, and Sam Keller,  it seems like the girls’ basketball team has a promising future. While the end of the season was difficult, the team remains conference champions, finishing with a 10-2 record in the SEC-Liberty division. Moreover, although it may be difficult to look past the final stretch of the season and see the possibility of another strong team next year, with a large young base, the team will hopefully be able to fill the holes in the team left by Jocelyn and Karina’s departure and challenge for the conference again in the coming years.