Summer hoopsters excel in AAU ball
by TOM UTESCHER
Caroline Doty of Germantown Academy participated in the Under-15 tournament.
For several players at area schools, a successful summer basketball season was capped off with a trip to Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) national tournaments at different points around the country.
Caroline Doty, who’ll start her sophomore year at Germantown Academy next month, participated in the Under-15 tournament in Clarksville, TN, while her schoolmate Jesse Carey, a freshman, traveled to Roanoke, VA for the Under-14 championships. Springside School was represented at the Under-13 tournament in Dayton, OH by Kristen Fuery, an eighth grader.
Doty’s team, from the Fort Washington-based Fencor AAU organization, continued a remarkable run, winning its third national championship in four years. In their “down” year, 2003, the squad merely finished second in the country after falling to the Fairfax (VA) Stars, the team they defeated in this year’s final.
The Fencor club was coached for a number of years by Chestnut Hill resident Keith Webster, and in 2004 the reins were handed to Veronica Algeo, who is the aunt of Chestnut Hill College women’s basketball coach Jackie deMarteleire.
Doty plays as a forward for Germantown Academy, but on the Fencor team she handles the point guard role along with Michelle Brokans, of Lansdale Catholic. Last summer, Doty broke her leg during the AAU regular season, and had to cheer from the sidelines as the team won the national crown.
“It was a lot of fun to be able to play this year,” she said. “All of us improved, because each of us worked on our own individual games outside of school and AAU practice. People got stronger, and worked on their shot.”
After winning the Mid-Atlantic Region, Fencor advanced through the early rounds of the tournament easily, except for a close second-round contest in which they beat the Tennessee Pride by four points. In the semifinals, the U-15’s rolled over Ohio’s Dayton Hoopstars, 59-35.
The Pennsylvania players gained a nine-point lead in the first half of the championship game, and as dominant 6’4” center Elena Delle Donne funneled in 40 points, they finished off Fairfax, 78-67.
Meanwhile, the Fencor Under-14 team that includes Jesse Carey had worked its way back to the national tournament. The ballclub had finished fourth in the country in 2004, and captured third place this time around.
“The team that knocked us out last year [California’s East Bay Explosion] was the one we beat this year to get third place,” the GA point guard related.
Fencor moved through the field without much trouble, winning every game up to the quarterfinals, where they defeated another Mid-Atlantic Region team, the Comets, 53-40. In the semifinals they suffered their lone setback, losing 66-53 to a club called Indiana’s Finest despite a 14-point effort by Carey.
“They had a ten-point lead on us in the first half, then we came back,” she said. “We were up by one with about four minutes to go, but after that they didn’t miss a shot.”
The Indiana outfit went on to win the championship, while in the third-place playoff Carey’s 15 points helped Fencor smother the Explosion, 63-42.
Springside’s Kristen Fuery played for the Renegades AAU club last year, leading her team to the Division II national title. This year she switched to the Philadelphia Belles organization, and earned a trip to the Division I tourney after her squad won the Mid-Atlantic tournament in Marlton, NJ. Her position on the court also changed, as she moved from the post out to a guard spot, and was tutored in the three-point shot.
At the start of the national tourney the Belles looked sharp, knocking off teams from Indiana, New York, and North Carolina to go undefeated in their four-team pool and earn a spot in the main draw. Their stay in the championship winners’ bracket would be brief, however, as they lost their first game to the Houston Hotshots, 68-54.
The Belles’ tourney run ended with a subsequent loss in the losers’ bracket to the Indiana Wildcats, 47-39. After the event concluded, Fuery and her teammates realized that they’d beaten four of the top eight teams at other tournaments earlier in the year, which made their premature exit at Nationals particularly frustrating.
Later in July, the Belles 13’s participated in the Blue Star Basketball Junior Nationals in Washington, DC, playing up in the 14’s category and finishing second in their pool with a 4-1 record.
