Basketball, Lacrosse
Favorite athlete: Mia Hamm
Favorite team: Philadelphia Phillies
Favorite memories competing in sports: Making it to the state playoffs sophomore year, scoring the game-winning goal against Hatboro-Horsham junior year, beating undefeated Cheltenham this year, and Steph (Knauer) scoring her 1,000th point
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: In sixth grade, I played for Towamencin soccer, and I showed up to my game not wearing my uniform.
Music on iPod: Country Music (Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan)
Future plans: Attending Temple University and majoring in accounting. I will be playing lacrosse there as well. After college, I hope to work for the FBI.
Words to live by: ‘Champions are made when no one is watching.’
One goal before turning 30: Have a successful, steady job, get married and start a family.
Brenda McDermott is the undisputed floor general of the North Penn Maidens’ basketball squad. In the spring, she will find herself in a similar role as the field general for the Maidens’ defending Continental Conference champion lacrosse team.
Assuming a leadership role comes naturally for McDermott who understands what is needed and, more often than not, delivers. Not necessarily with points or goals but with the kind of intangibles coaches value most.
“At practice last week, I was kind of irritated with the way things were going, and Brenda pulled everyone together,” basketball coach Maggie deMarteleire said. “She was talking to them, and I could hear her say, ‘We’ve got to play better defense than we did on Saturday.’ After that, we ended up having a really good practice.
“I can’t say enough about her.”
Lacrosse coach Jami Wilus echoed a similar refrain.
“The thing about Brenda that every day surprises me is that she could probably be an assistant coach,” Wilus said. “She gets it, she understands what the team needs.
“You teach her a play, and the next day she’s pointing out where people need to be. She makes our job as coaches a lot easier because of the way she just understands how the game should be played and what we expect as a coaching staff.
“Whether the team needs to be fired up or if they need that calming presence, she can feel the vibe of the team and responds exactly the way we need her to as a leader.”
McDermott is a two-year captain in lacrosse and also a captain of this year’s basketball squad, and with her lacrosse future at the collegiate level assured, the senior point guard – who is signed, sealed and delivered to play lacrosse at Temple – should be forgiven if basketball was somewhat of an afterthought.
But that’s not McDermott’s style.
“I give her so much credit,” deMarteleire said. “When she first came to North Penn, I heard soccer was her big thing, and she’s gone on to become an outstanding lacrosse player, but she still gives me 100 percent in basketball 100 percent of the time, and I can’t ask for more.
“It’s not like you say – lacrosse is her main sport, and she just plays basketball. She has a scholarship for lacrosse, but she gives me everything she can on the basketball court.”
It’s a rare and special athlete who can give themselves completely to two sports, but McDermott has found a way.
“If you need three goals a game, she’ll give you three goals a game,” Wilus said. “She’s going to come up with the interceptions, the assists. She makes sure her teammates around her are involved, but her effort is always consistent.
“Her leadership on the playing field and in the classroom – you see a lot of kids go up and down from one day to another, and you don’t know what you’re going to get. Every day that Brenda steps on the field, you know which player is going to show up.”
While McDermott, an all-league midfielder, comfortably fell into the role of calling plays for her lacrosse team since she was a sophomore, it took some time for her to take ownership of her leadership position on the basketball court.
“She’s really, really matured over the past four years and has taken on the role of directing traffic on offense and defense like a badge of honor,” deMarteleire said. “I think the culmination of her maturity came in the Cheltenham game. From the way she played last year to the way she played this year, just her composure – it was night and day.”
The Maidens – behind the steady play of McDermott at point – handed Cheltenham its only loss of the season.
If there was a turning point in the season for the senior point guard, it came after the Maidens lost to Central Bucks South on Jan. 6 when they fell victim to the Titans’ relentless pressure. The Maidens were 6-4 after the South loss. They have won 13 of 14 games since that time.
“Brenda is a student of the game, and she always wants to know what her assist-to-turnover ratio is,” deMarteleire said. “At the beginning of the season, her turnovers were more than her assists, but since that CB South game where she had 10 turnovers herself, she’s completely turned that number around.
“She’s made it her goal to reduce her turnovers because she knew it was hurting the team. She’s just a great team player. Whatever sport she’s playing, she’s just a tremendous asset.”
McDermott has been competing in sports for as long as she can remember. Soccer and basketball were the first sports to enter the picture. She also played softball and then added track in middle school
“I basically tried a little bit of everything to see what I would like,” she said.
She got her first taste of lacrosse in eighth grade when her English teacher asked her to try out for his middle school team.
“I wasn’t really sure because I ran track, and I liked that too,” McDermott said. “I just tried it to see if I would like it, and I ended up really liking it.
“Before I started playing lacrosse, I was definitely going to play soccer in college or at least try to.”
When she was a sophomore, McDermott, who played club soccer for the Bucks-Mont United, opted to give up soccer in favor of lacrosse and basketball.
“We were doing more showcases and practicing a lot more,” she said. “It was hard to keep up with everything because I would go from school to basketball to soccer practices, from school to lacrosse to soccer.
“I didn’t want to be a one-sport athlete, but I saw that being a three-sport athlete was way too much.”
Interestingly, despite her success on the lacrosse field, McDermott acknowledges that her first passion has been basketball.
“I’ve always loved basketball,” she said. “It’s my favorite sport to play, and I always wanted to play college basketball, but I’m not as good at it as I am at lacrosse.”
Giving basketball up to focus all her time on lacrosse was never a consideration for McDermott, who points to playing with her best friend – Steph Knauer – as an experience she wouldn’t have wanted to miss.
“Usually your best friend isn’t on the same sports team as you,” McDermott said. “They call me and Steph the mom and dad of our team because sometimes we butt heads, but in the end, you always know she’ll have your back.
“All the girls on the team are great, and we get along so well. I could never give it up.”
The fact that McDermott excels on the lacrosse field is hardly surprising. Her older sister Lauren rode her lacrosse talents to a scholarship at La Salle University. The sisters have decidedly different styles of play.
“Lauren was fiery and wanted to take the ball to the net,” Wilus said. “We had to convince Brenda – ‘Hey, we need you to score, and we need you to go to goal sometimes.’
“She is so unselfish. I think she’s a defensive-minded midfielder, but we call on her to really lead the attack.”
McDermott acknowledged that the differences are pronounced, but the siblings share a special camaraderie.
“On Sunday, I went to her game, and I would tell her what I was seeing, and she would ask me for advice,” she said. “I would go to her for advice, and she would help me over the summer with my stick work, so we’re always helping each other out.”
Just as she excels on the basketball court and lacrosse field, McDermott also excels in the classroom.
“Obviously, your grades come first,” she said. “I guess you could call me a little bit of a nerd because I always study for my tests, and I always strive to get A’s in all my classes.”
A fixture on the distinguished honor roll, McDermott boasts a 3.9 non-weighted GPA. Her course load this semester includes AP Stat, and she’s carrying an A in that as well. She plans to major in accounting next year at Temple.
“She’s a hard working student and a hard working player,” Wilus said. “You ask her to do something, and she’s right there.
“She’s just a fun person to be around, and she’s very mature. She’s just a good kid.”
