Basketball
Favorite athlete: Jason Kelce
Favorite team: Philadelphia Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: Beating PW for the first time in my high school career in the playoffs to get us into states.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: One time we were beating a team by a lot and one of my teammates accidentally scored on the wrong net. The team thought it was hilarious…coach did not.
Music on playlist: “Run This Town” Rhianna
Future plans: Going to Holy Family and majoring in accounting.
Words to live by: “Live every day as if it’s your last.”
One goal before turning 30: I know how to juggle.
By Mary Jane Souder
Amy Ngo is a fierce competitor.
That’s not unusual. Most standout athletes are, but if there’s a moment that underscores just how deep that desire to compete really is, it just might have been on Feb. 23, 2022, arguably the worst day of the Upper Dublin senior’s stellar basketball career.
With six minutes remaining in her team’s District 1 6A playoff game at Pennsbury, the then sophomore guard went down after being fouled going to the basket.
“I don’t really know anything about injuries,” Ngo said. “I felt something happen in my knee. I didn’t know what it was, but I felt my knee being out of place. I was in a lot of pain.”
Pain was secondary to Ngo, who wanted a quick fix, asking trainer Katie Bartosik – affectionately known as Ms. B - to put her knee back in place.
“I knew that people could do that with shoulders and stuff, and I thought it was the same thing with the knee,” Ngo said.
Even when it was clear that wasn’t a possibility, she wanted to go back in the game.
“It was such a good game – we were the 12th seed, and they were the five seed,” Ngo said. “People thought we were going to lose by 20. I think we were up at that point.”
Upper Dublin did, in fact, have a 25-23 lead when Ngo went down and had led for the better part of the contest before falling 36-30.
“Unfortunately, I remember that like it was yesterday,” UD coach Morgan Funsten said. “We were excited because she got fouled in a big moment, and we were excited that she was going to the line.
“It went from an excited moment to hands on the head. I still remember as her knee was dislocated - her asking the paramedics if she could go back in the game.”
It’s a moment that tells you all you need to know about the talented guard. Ngo is a competitor, plain and simple. The injury turned out to be a tear of just about everything possible in Ngo’s knee, but the pain and discomfort she was feeling after it happened were secondary to her unwavering desire to get back on the court and compete.
That has never changed.
One year and 10 months later, that competitive fire still burns.
In a recent game against perennial 4A power Scranton Prep, Ngo came up with a steal and was fouled going to the basket. With 4.8 seconds remaining, she sank the second of two, propelling the Cardinals to the dramatic 31-30 win.
Hours later, sleep was far from Ngo’s mind.
“I’m still really excited about it,” she said.
And that’s Amy Ngo, a player who loves and respects the game, playing with a passion that is impossible to miss to even the most casual observer.
“I always said I’d love to get players who care as much as our coaching staff does, and now I’m trying to keep up with Ame, caring about everything as much as she does,” Funsten said. “It’s very refreshing these days to find athletes like this.”
Born to play basketball
With a mother – Jen Zenszer - who excelled in basketball and was inducted into the Halls of Fame of Bishop McDevitt High School, La Salle University as well as the Big 5, Ngo acknowledges she was all but born with a basketball in her hands.
“I started playing when I was really young,” she said. “My mom had me in the YMCA league when I was three or four.
“I grew up playing soccer, and I played a little softball when I was young, but it was really basketball and soccer when I grew up through middle school. Once I got to high school, I got rid of soccer, and I was fully basketball.”
From the outset, Ngo loved the sport.
“Everyone always talked about how good my mom was, and that just gave me motivation to be good,” she said. “She coached me in fourth grade, and we would get in too many fights, so she was like – I’m done coaching you. That was her coaching career with me.”
It did not mark the end of her mother’s influence.
“Throughout high school, she’s definitely been very, very supportive and helped me with everything, but she is tough on me at times when I need it,” Ngo said.
Ngo joined the AAU circuit in fifth grade, initially with Fencor for two years and the Comets since then. She also played CYO in seventh and eighth grades for St. Alphonsus.
“That really prepared me for high school,” she said. “My coach, Mr. (Mike) McCloskey, was very good, very hard.”
As a freshman, Ngo immediately found a home in the varsity starting lineup with four seniors.
“Going into freshman year was the COVID year, so there was very little to no offseason for eighth graders going into ninth grade,” Funsten said. “For a player who you’re expecting to help your team as a freshman, that’s really difficult for everybody.
“You want to see what they can do, and she wants to show you what she can do. I still remember the first time I really got to see her play at the high school level. We were at some sort of preseason tournament in Oaks. I remember she made some big plays down the stretch, and we won the game. I’m just like – ‘Whoa, you’re pretty legit, Ame.’ She just gives you a smile – she’s always smiling. She loves just being around the game.”
Ngo has nothing but fond memories of her rookie season.
“Looking back on it now, that year was so much fun,” she said. “The seniors were really, really great coming in. They were really good leaders. I still think about it when I’m trying to be a good senior leader now – I’m like ‘What did they do that was so good that helped me?’”
The setback
Ngo was catching the eye of college coaches as a freshman and upped her game as a sophomore. The script was going as planned until that fateful day in February when the unimaginable happened.
In addition to worrying about the game she was forced to leave, Ngo – who was transported to the hospital by ambulance - was also thinking about her future.
“The ER doctor told me it looked like everything would be fine, which was completely wrong because everything in my knee was torn, but that gave me some hope,” she said. “My mom was kind of annoyed and she was like, ‘There’s obviously something wrong.’ “
A week later, Ngo received the heartbreaking news – she tore her ACL and MCL, both meniscus had root tears, and she also partially tore her PCL. She had surgery on April 1.
“They had me do a month of prehab because that’s supposed to help with recovering, and I think it did,” she said. “The week after surgery especially was really painful.
“Since I tore so much, I was on crutches for six weeks. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t put any pressure on it. Then I got back to PT and just grinded.”
Ngo had a second surgery on Sept. 14 to remove scar tissue.
“I wasn’t making progress with my inflection and my knee bending,” she said. “I was annoyed at myself because I was working so hard at it, and I was like – am I just not doing enough, but that just wasn’t it.
“It was because when I had the surgery I had six weeks where I couldn’t put any pressure on it. It just caused more scar tissue to build up, and it made it harder to bend my knee. So, I had to get a second surgery, but it was easy.”
Ngo surprised everyone when she returned to the basketball court in mid-January and played for more than half of her junior season – an unexpected bonus.
“Just her attitude and being at everything from surgery to the recovery to her return – now we look back on it, and maybe she came back a little too early last year,” Funsten said. “This year, physically, she’s back.
“Last year, it was just total willpower for her to be able to play in games, and now it’s fun again. Last year, it was work. You could not fault her for wanting to do what she was doing. You would not expect anything less out of someone with that type of work ethic, that type of family – the family support, the family drive.
“Last year, she absolutely helped us, but it’s a lot more fun watching her now because it doesn’t seem like she’s laboring as much. Things are back to being pretty much natural, and she’s having a blast. She’s being a great leader. I’m so excited for her.”
Ngo is teaming with younger sister Megan to provide a dangerous backcourt for the Cardinals.
“I really like playing with Meg,” she said. “We’re very, very competitive. We’re always playing against each other in practice because we’re on separate teams, so one of us is always going home mad because we’re so competitive.”
According to her coach, the two-year captain brings more than just leadership skills and a competitive fire to the court.
“I think she’s the best pure shooter I’ve ever coached on the boys’ side or girls’ side,” said Funsten, who has spent 20 years on the sidelines. “Her work ethic is special, her positive attitude is special. Her respect, her wanting to be coached – I’ve never coached anyone who wants to be coached as much as she does.
“She’s really fortunate to be brought up in such a great family where they value coaches and value work ethic, respectfulness and everything like that.”
A bright future
Although her story has a happy ending, Ngo’s injury had a direct impact on her recruiting journey since she missed her sophomore AAU season.
“Mentally, it was really hard because everyone says that 10th grade is the biggest recruiting year to get coaches to be aware of you, and I missed out on all of that,” she said. “As much as I was happy for all my teammates, it was really hard seeing them getting better and getting all this college interest while I was sidelined.
“The hardest part was just always being there, which I loved, obviously, supporting my team, but just not ever being able to actually feel like a part of the team since I couldn’t play.”
Ngo had been talking to several colleges her freshman year.
“I got hurt, and it just all went away, which is understandable,” she said. “I came back junior year pretty much with nothing. I was starting from square one, and so I was like – you know what, I’m just going to see what happens. I’m back, I can finally play again. I’m just going to have fun playing.”
She reached out to several coaches, including Holy Family coach Bernadette Laukaitis.
“I kind of knew her growing up – I used to play basketball with her son,” Ngo said.
Laukaistis – who didn’t think she’d have a chance to land Ngo – was very interested, and in June, the UD senior committed to continue her career at Holy Family University.
“I was really happy,” she said. “I went up to the campus twice. I loved it, I loved Coach Bern, I loved the team. I love them even more now that I’ve seen them play, met all the girls, gotten close with them.
“It feels like everything did work out the way it was supposed to.”
These days, Ngo is focused on her final high school season.
“It definitely is hitting home,” Ngo said. “I’m coming into every game with the mentality that this is my last year, this is my senior year – no games are being taken lightly.”
The injury has forever altered Ngo’s perspective.
“I tell everyone – I have so much more appreciation for playing,” she said. “I would see some of my teammates be like – I don’t feel like practicing today. I’m like – at least we get to practice.”
An excellent student, Ngo plans to major in accounting.
“I don’t know where that’s going to take me, she said. “My mom majored in accounting, and now she’s an FBI agent. There’s a lot of different routes I can go with it, so we’ll see where it takes me.”
Holy Family, according to Funsten, is inheriting a special player.
“Their coaching staff seems to truly care about her, and that’s something that’s important to her,” the UD coach said. “She doesn’t have the personality of someone who’s going to be at four colleges in five years. This girl is very loyal to the people in her life, and that’s something that makes her really special. I couldn’t be happier for her.”
*UD action photo courtesy of Larry Small (2-22-23)
