Senior Molly Dugan reached the 1,000-point plateau in Springfield Township’s win over Upper Moreland last Thursday. (Photos of the 1,000-point celebration provided courtesy of Springfield basketball.)
Molly Dugan was in sixth grade when Elise DiFilippo reached the 1,000-point milestone in the winter of 2011, but the Springfield senior remembers it well.
“When I was in middle school, I used to come to the high school games, and I looked up to those girls, so I remember when she scored it when I was younger,” said Dugan. “I thought about how cool it was, but I never thought I’d do it.”
Dugan accomplished what she never thought she could last Thursday, putting her name in the record books when she buried a pair of foul shots in the third quarter of the Spartans’ 35-26 win at Upper Moreland. The second shot vaulted her to the elusive 1,000-point milestone, the first female player to accomplish that feat at Springfield since DiFilippo.
“I didn’t really think about it until this season when people started mentioning it to me,” Dugan said. “Before, I was just playing, and whatever happened happened. I wasn’t really thinking about the thousand points.”
The game was halted for a brief celebration.
“All my teammates put on these t-shirts that had my number and a thousand points,” Dugan said. “I was very surprised.
“It was fun to have all my family and friends there even though it was an away game.”
No one was more relieved to get it over with than Dugan. The high-scoring senior needed just eight points entering Thursday’s game. She finished with 11, well below her average.
“I swear, I thought I wasn’t nervous before the game, and then I got in the game, and I was bad,” Dugan said. “I could not get the ball in for my life, but my team played very well, and even though I was struggling, my team did awesome. My team was excited for me so that helped me too.”
It was appropriate that the standout foul shooter scored the historic basketball from the charity stripe.
“I knew I was really close,” Dugan said. “I’ve practiced those foul shots a million times, and I was like, ‘I have to get it in.’”
The senior sharpshooter – who scored 40 points in a win over Cheltenham last year - can burn teams from just about anywhere on the court.
“This year she’s been scoring more inside than outside because teams are not letting her shoot from the outside,” coach Bill Krewson said. “The greatest thing about her scoring is she’s lights out from the foul line 90 percent of the time.
“Molly is the consummate team player. (On Thursday) at times – I think she was battling getting it over with and getting the ball to her teammates.”
Dugan, according to her coach, boasts a high basketball IQ.
“She’s the smartest basketball player I’ve coached since I’ve been coaching at the high school level,” Krewson said. “She just knows where to go and what to do.
“We come into timeouts, and I’m talking and all of a sudden she’s talking too. She knows the game really well and knows where to be. She’s a heady, smart player.”
Making Dugan’s accomplishment even more remarkable is the fact that she does not play basketball year round.
“I play other sports, and I exercise to stay in shape,” she said. “I shoot around, and of course, I’m always playing but never for a serious team.
“I didn’t play AAU or anything I just played in winter for fun.”
A member of the soccer team all four years of high school, Dugan got her first taste of competitive basketball playing for St. Genevieve’s CYO. She learned the sport under the tutelage of her father, and while Dugan – whose brother Brendan played at Springfield - might not have been a year-round player, she takes her sport very seriously.
“I put a lot of effort into it,” she said. “I take every practice seriously. I never really fool around because I want to improve. I focus all the time.”
Dugan’s focus and commitment to excellence was never more apparent than on the bus trip back to Springfield after Thursday’s historic night.
“The proud moment about her tonight is she was disgusted with the way she played because she didn’t play the way she wanted to play,” Krewson said. “She’s that motivated to compete.”
It’s that love of the competition that is making it so hard to envision life without basketball next year when she enrolls at Temple University.
How much will she miss it?
“Like crazy,” Dugan said. “I can’t even explain. I get excited for every practice and every game.
“We have a lot of younger girls on the team, and I want to show them how much I love it, hoping they’ll like it as much as I do.”
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