Major marks set by GA player and her coach

Posted 2/2/15

In a sideline shot from a preseason scrimmage are (from left) Germantown Academy senior guard Olivia Gorman, who reached 1000 points for her career last Wednesday at Baldwin School, assistant coach …

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Major marks set by GA player and her coach

Posted

In a sideline shot from a preseason scrimmage are (from left) Germantown Academy senior guard Olivia Gorman, who reached 1000 points for her career last Wednesday at Baldwin School, assistant coach Kristen Fuery, and Patriots head coach Sherri Retif, who achieved her 600th win as a coach in the same game against Baldwin. (Photo by Tom Utescher) In a sideline shot from a preseason scrimmage are (from left) Germantown Academy senior guard Olivia Gorman, who reached 1000 points for her career last Wednesday at Baldwin School, assistant coach Kristen Fuery, and Patriots head coach Sherri Retif, who achieved her 600th win as a coach in the same game against Baldwin. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

Baldwin School hosted last Wednesday’s Inter-Ac league hoops game, but it was Germantown Academy that brought milestone mania to Bryn Mawr. Two career marks were set in GA’s 48-40 victory; senior guard Olivia Gorman posted a game-high 22 points to push her career scoring total past 1000 points, and veteran head coach Sherri Retif won her 600th game as a scholastic basketball skipper.

Gorman, a 5’6” guard who can take the ball to the rack and also pop it in from the three-point loop, is the Patriots’ lone senior this season. She nailed two treys and went four–for-five from the three-point line at Baldwin, where the Patriots took a slim 34-31 lead into the fourth quarter.

An excellent student, Gorman had been eying some small, academically prestigious institutions in this area. However, a recent trip to Connecticut convinced her that Wesleyan University will be the best fit for her. Attending a Division III affiliate will also give Gorman the option of pursuing both basketball and another sport at which she excels, softball.

Retif, now in her 19th season with GA, began her coaching career at Ursuline Academy in New Orleans, the city where she earned hall of fame status as a basketball player at Tulane University. Her first coaching stop in the Philadelphia area was at Sun Valley High School in Aston, Pa., where she passed the 200-win mark. Later, as GA coach, she would claim both her 300th and 500th victory at the expense of Archbishop Wood High School, while number 400 came against St. Basil Academy.

Her Patriots have won 14 league championships (the last in 2012) and can claim an Inter-Ac win streak that stretched to 111 games. In three end-of-season national polls, Retif has had three teams ranked in the top 20 in the U.S., two of them finishing eighth. She coached the East Team in the 2008 McDonald’s All-America Game, and in 2013 she was inducted into the Montgomery County Coaches Hall of Fame.

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