Basketball
Favorite athlete: I’ve always liked Darren Sproles because he’s little but has to go against people much bigger than him, just like I do.
Favorite team: Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports:The greatest moment had to be the team hug following our recent win against Upper Dublin in their gym.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Funniest moment had to be when someone on the team split their pants mid-game.
Music on iPod: I listen to a wide variety of music, but mostly R&B.
Future plans:I’m planning on going to college to become a Forensic Accountant
Words to live by: “When nothing is going right for you, try going left.”
One goal before turning 30:Aside from being on my way to a successful career, I hope to have added a bunch of pins to my map of places I’ve been in the world.
One thing people don’t know about me:I love traveling and trying anything new/adventurous.
By Mary Jane Souder
Laurel Suchsland remembers it well.
The Plymouth Whitemarsh senior – then a freshman – was minding her own business, a swing player on the varsity bench for the very first game of the season.
“I didn’t think I was going to go in,” Suchsland said. “All the other girls were bigger and better than me.”
But then the unexpected happened.
“One of our starters was on the free throw line and shot her first one, and before the second one, the ref said that she had a hair tie on her wrist and made her come out of the game,” Suchsland recalls. “So the coach had to put someone else in who would then have to shoot the free throw.
“Of all the people on the bench, he put me in, so I went in terrified and shot the free throw. I made it, and I thought I was going to come right back out after that, but I ended up playing two minutes of the game. I was so un-mentally ready, but that’s basketball. You never know what’s going to happen.”
Basketball may have its surprises, but there is one certainty – Suchsland is always ready. And more than willing to do whatever the team might need.
A four-year varsity player and three-year starter, Suchsland doesn’t find her way into the headlines. Nor does the two-year captain fill a stat sheet, but the Colonials – undefeated after 15 games – wouldn’t be the same without her.
“She’s the kind of kid – people that know basketball see what she does, but she never shows up on a stat sheet,” coach Daniel Dougherty said. “Anybody that shows up to a game will be like, ‘Yeah, they can’t win without that girl. They need that girl.’
“We have a quote – not everyone gets to be a starring role, but everyone has to be a star in their role. She’s the star of that role player role. If kids want to help off of her, she’ll knock down a three. If you ignore her, she’ll come dashing in, get that offensive rebound and get an and-one. Defensively, she takes on the task of guarding the other team's best player most nights, and she’s just going to lock down and shut her girl down, whoever she’s guarding. It’s just a thankless job.”
Suchsland is averaging just over five points a game. Not exactly what she might have been expecting after finishing the season strong last year, burying 18 three-pointers in the final nine games as one of the team’s three starting guards.
When junior transfer Lauren Fortescue – a guard – joined the team this year, Suchsland found herself playing closer to the basket as a fourth guard/post player.
“I do a lot more screening and stuff than I do shooting,” she said.
That’s just fine with Suchsland, who will happily forego her own stats for the good of the team, and so far, it’s been a dream season.
“It’s just unexpected,” she said. “We had a good season last year, nothing crazy, but it was a good season, and we didn’t lose anyone since we didn’t have any seniors.
“We pretty much had the mindset we’re going to be better next year, and then we got Fort (Lauren Fortescue), so that made it even better. I don’t think any of us really understood what her addition to our team meant. It really gave us the opportunity to do so much more than we could in the past.”
As for her personal sacrifices, Suchsland takes it all in stride.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do, and this is just the position I was thrown into,” she said. “I’m only 5-4, so being a post – I know that I’m tough and can do that, but sometimes it’s very intimidating because I do not compare to those girls.
“Initially, sometimes it was hard, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to fill that role, but as the season has gone on, I’ve gotten more confident, and it’s shown in the games that whatever we’re doing is working.”
That might be an understatement for a team that finds itself ranked in the top 10 in the latest @PAGirlsHoop rankings.
“Any great team, any good team needs kids like her to be successful,” Dougherty said. “Kids that are not going to complain about – I didn’t get to score tonight, I didn’t get to shoot tonight. Coach, no one is giving you any write-ups.
“You need kids like her that just get it. They get it, they embrace it, and it’s more about the team winning than it is about individual stuff.”
*****
Suchsland’s love of sports was nurtured as a youngster growing up in a neighborhood where playing any and every sport was a natural thing.
“I live on a cul de sac so we were always playing sports outside,” she said. “My neighborhood was newly built when I was little, so it was a bunch of kids growing up together.
“I played soccer, basketball, softball, lacrosse and I swam for a while.”
Organized sports entered the picture when she was in kindergarten and played community soccer. Other sports followed, but basketball was the one that stuck.
“I still swim in the summer, but it’s very come and go,” said Suchsland, who opted to give up soccer to focus on basketball after her freshman year. “Basketball is fun.
“I feel like a bunch of the other sports – soccer or lacrosse you play offense or defense. You don’t really get to play a whole mix of stuff. In basketball, there are just so many different components to it, so much you can really do with it. You’re not really stuck to one position.”
Suchsland, who began playing travel basketball in fourth grade, joined the AAU circuit in eighth grade.
“For the most part, I’ve never been a leading scorer on my team,” she said. “Last year I was scoring a lot, but that was my position for the year.
“It’s always been the more aggressive side – getting in there, getting boards and that kind of thing. I really do enjoy my position. You see the articles, and they talk about the leading scorers. I think it’s fun to sort of have a different perspective, almost behind the scenes of what we do and how it gets done.”
A mainstay on a team that just defeated four-time SOL American Conference champion Upper Dublin for the second time this season, Suchsland and her teammates find themselves just two wins away from clinching a share of their program’s first conference title since 1997.
“When we beat Upper Dublin once, we were so ecstatic about that,” she said. “We kept going and we kept going, and (the rematch) was looming. That’s going to be the test for us – are we really going to be a great team this season or are we lucky and skating through.
“For us to win just proved to us all that the hard work in practice and the offseason is paying off, and we are a really good team. It’s been very fun.”
Basketball – although significant – is just one part of Suchsland’s busy life. She is a member of the Principal’s Advisory Council, which acts as a liaison between the principal and students and keeps the administration in tune with the pulse of the students. This spring she will once again be involved in Benefit for a Friend, a concert held for charity. She is a member of PW’s Anti-Defamation League (‘No Place for Hate’), serving as an orientation leader who travels within the school to promote anti-bullying.
Suchsland still finds time to coach in her church’s CYO third and fourth grade basketball programs, and her summer job also kept her closely involved with sports, coaching at a sports camp at Ridge Park Elementary School.
While it would be easy for her to coast through her senior year, Suchsland – a member of the National Honor Society – has a rigorous schedule that includes three AP classes.
She is undecided on a college but plans to major in forensic accounting, combining her love for math with her penchant for mysteries.
“Math was always something that sort of clicked for me, and I liked how there’s always an answer, and it’s very definitive,” Suchsland said. “I also love crime shows, and ever since I was little, the books that I would read were mysteries, so the two fit together and it sounded like it would never be boring.”
For now, however, the senior captain is focusing on a senior basketball season to remember with district playoffs just around the corner where Suchsland will be kept busy doing the dirty work for a team with its sights set high.
“She’s unselfish, and she’s the leader on the team,” Dougherty said. “We would not be anywhere close to where we are without her and kids like her on the team. She’s just a great all-around kid.”
