In last Tuesday night’s win over Plymouth Whitemarsh, Cheltenham sophomore Ashley Jones surpassed the 1,000-point milestone, the first sophomore to accomplish that feat in program history.
By Mary Jane Souder
Ashley Jones is looking to re-write the history books at Cheltenham High School. The sophomore star is off to a good start.
In Tuesday night’s win over visiting Plymouth Whitemarsh, Jones – despite being fouled – scored on a drive midway through the second quarter. The basket vaulted Jones over the 1,000-point plateau. She is the 17th female in the history of the program to surpass that milestone, the first to do it as a sophomore.
According to her coach, there’s not a whole lot Jones can’t do on the basketball court.
“She doesn’t seem to be bothered by big moments,” coach Brendan Nolan said. “She has moments of frustration like every kid, but they’re very few and far between.
“She’s supremely confident in her ability. She has the ability to get to the line. She gets in the lane, and she can finish around the basket. She creates contact so she can absorb contact, and she’s a really good three-point shooter. That’s a hard kid to defend.”
Jones accomplished the feat in just 43 games, averaging close to 24 points a game since she set foot on the hardwood as a freshman.
“This was a goal,” the soft-spoken Jones admitted. “From my freshman year, since I’ve been balling and scoring that many points, I’ve been planning to get the thousand this year so I could possibly get to two thousand maybe by my senior year.”
Just one player has surpassed the 2,000-point mark in Cheltenham history, and that was Laura Harper, a 2004 graduate who went on to have a standout career at the University of Maryland where – as a sophomore - she was the MVP when the Terrapins won the NCAA National title. Harper closed out her high school career with 2,006 points.
Jones is already attracting the attention of big name basketball programs, a recruiting process that began when she was in seventh grade.
“Temple was the first one, and I’ve had all the Philly schools,” she sad. “Then the rest came along when I started travel.
“The stressful part will be when I get to my 11th and 12th grade year when I figure out where I’m going to go because the schools I’m hearing from are all good – in the top 10 and top 25, so it’s going to be hard for me to choose where I’m going to go. Right now I’m just happy I’m hearing from these schools because some people at this age don’t get the schools I’m getting.”
It takes no time at all to see that this girl’s got game, a fact Nolan says he’s known since he first spotted Jones on the playground in fourth grade.
“She was dominating the boys out in the playground,” he said. “Now a lot can happen between that time and high school, but I knew she was out there playing all the time.
“She’s playing AAU as a young kid, playing in boys’ leagues. I knew she was going to be a good player. It was just a matter of how good she was going to be.”
When Jones arrived on the high school scene, she made an immediate impact.
“The easy comparison for me was CC Andrews,” said Nolan of the program’s most recent 1,000-point scorer who finished with 1,610. “I was CC’s jayvee coach her freshman year, and Ashley was ahead of where CC was as a freshman.
“Right there that tells you all you need to know. She was ahead of a girl that went to St. Joe’s.”
From the outset, Jones has been the focal point of opposing teams’ defenses.
“She has seen pretty much nothing but box-and-one, diamond-and-one and triangle –and-two in the second half of the season is still putting up those numbers,” Nolan said. “It’s incredible. She loves to play basketball.”
Jones says she has been playing basketball since she was three or four.
“My dad worked at a rec center, so I was able to get shots up and work on my game,” she said. “I had the perfect people to work me out, and I also played on boys’ leagues all of my life.”
She credits her dad (Quentin Jones), her brothers and her coaches for helping her develop into the player she is today. She has played AAU since she was in third grade, starting out with the Philadelphia Freedom Stars but moving to Triple Threat the last three years.
While there’s no mistaking Jones is a special talent, the super sophomore works hard at her craft, and her focus was evident when – after halting the game for a brief celebration after she scored the historic basket – Jones went to the foul line and buried the foul shot.
“It just comes with me being so serious about basketball,” she said. “I think I have to take it serious and focus.
“After the game, I was more happy and celebrated. When it happened, I just wanted to win the game.”
And how much does she love basketball?
“One hundred percent,” Jones said. “Basketball is what I do."
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