This featured was sponsored by Neshaminy girls’ basketball. Neshaminy/Pennsbury photo provided courtesy of Darryl Rule of J&D Photography.
By Mary Jane Souder
Lola Ibarrondo is a familiar name to fans of high school basketball.
A first team All-PCL Blue Division honoree as a freshman at Conwell Egan, Ibarrondo transferred to Neshaminy as a sophomore when her family moved to Feasterville. She wasted little time before making an impact on the basketball court, earning first team All-SOL Patriot Division honors in her first year with the Redskins.
The now junior is once again making a mark on the basketball court and also excelling in the classroom, recently earning Student of the Month honors.
That’s as much as most know about Ibarrondo’s journey, but it’s only a very small piece of her story.
Ibarrondo grew up playing street ball in her Bristol neighborhood.
“I grew up around all boys, so that’s all we did,” she said. “I finally joined an organized basketball team (St. Mark’s CYO) when I was in third or fourth grade.”
She also played football for four years with the Bristol Wildcats, walking away from the sport in eighth grade.
“The boys were getting big, and I wanted to just focus on basketball,” Ibarrondo said.
In June of 2020, Ibarrondo lost her grandmother, and a year later, on June 13, 2021, her childhood friend and Bristol Wildcats teammate – Ryan Clegg – was tragically killed in a dirt bike accident.
“It was very sad and sudden,” she said. “The whole community seemed like they were in mourning, all of Bristol pretty much.”
On the heels of losing her childhood friend, Ibarrondo moved to Feasterville and began her first year at Neshaminy.
“I came from two very small schools and then I walked into Neshaminy, and there were more kids in their freshman class than all of Bristol,” Ibarrondo said. “So, it was hard, and I felt really isolated for a while because of that. It was definitely difficult.
“I was dealing with a lot of things mentally and internally that I wasn’t really talking about that much because I didn’t want to be negative, so I hid a lot of it.”
Basketball eased the transition somewhat since Ibarrondo was AAU teammates on the Mid-Atlantic Magic with Reese Zemitis and played for coach John Gallagher and assistant coach Meg Gallagher.
“It was still a lot of stress,” Ibarrondo said. “I had to switch teams, meet new teammates.”
The season was barely underway when her best friend, Gabbie Devine, became ill and was hospitalized. On Christmas Day, she was diagnosed with leukemia. Ibarrondo heard the news a day later.
“She was my best friend since second grade,” Ibarrondo said. “As soon as we met, it was an instant connection. We were inseparable all that time.”
Devine lost her courageous battle with leukemia on May 3, 2022.
“It was definitely fast,” said Ibarrondo. “Because of chemo, her immune system was shot, so no one could really go see her.
“She was in the hospital for weeks at a time. It was mainly just FaceTime calls, just doing whatever we could for her family. On her birthday, we went to CHOP, and we had signs outside her window, but it was hard. When she was home, we could go up to her gate, but we couldn’t hug. We had to have a mask on, so the whole time it was just at a distance.”
While it might seem as though basketball would be a welcome diversion, it wasn’t.
“I was going through a lot at the time - not many people really knew,” Ibarrondo said.
Ibarrondo spent as much time as she could with her friend group that Devine was such a significant part of and continues to place high value on those friendships.
“We were all there for each other the whole time, doing what we could for her family,” she said. “We even do stuff now still in her memory.
“We go out together, we have fun together, we talk about what we used to do, and we also visit her family a lot and get gifts together for her family. We actually became closer because of it.”
A difficult journey
Lola Ibarrondo is one of those special basketball players any coach would want on their team.
An outstanding point guard, the junior is fearless taking the ball to the basket and is equally comfortable pulling up and shooting off the dribble, but her value goes beyond her obvious skills.
“Lola is amazing,” Neshaminy assistant Megan Gallagher said. “She gets along with everyone on the team, she jokes around with everyone.
“I think she’s a person people can turn to because she’s very honest and will talk to them in a real positive way to help them. She loves her teammates, she works hard every day in practice. You can just see what a total turnaround not just from where she was this time last year but even a few months ago.”
Last season, while her friend was battling leukemia, Ibarrondo understandably had a difficult time focusing on basketball.
“For a little bit, I was seriously considering quitting, just dropping the sport completely,” she said. “It was incredibly, incredibly tough. The craziest thing about it was you felt like your whole world fell apart, and everything else is still moving.
“Teachers are still teaching, and you’re getting behind on things because you’re so sad and you’re suffering, but everything else just keeps going.
“I reached out to my assistant coach, coach Meg Gallo. She gave me a lot of good advice, and she really helped me through it. She actually helped me seek therapy, and that helped me a lot. I’m pretty sure she’s one of the main reasons I didn’t quit honestly. I’m glad I didn’t – she did a lot.”
Meg Gallagher had known Ibarrondo for several years prior to her transfer to Neshaminy.
“Coaching Lola in AAU two or three years, we could definitely see the change in her,” the Redskins’ assistant said. “From the lighthearted bubbly joke-around kid to turning very into herself, not really interacting as much with her teammates, which was understandable with the year she had.
“At the Neshaminy banquet shortly after her friend passed away, she talked a little bit about it, just about how she felt and where her head was at. I told her, ‘If you need anything, we’re always here for you. Feel free to reach out.’”
For Ibarrondo, it felt as though basketball had robbed her of precious time with her best friend.
“I missed time with Gabbie and with my friends because I had to go to practices and I had to leave things early,” she said. “I missed her last phone call because I was at a tournament. It was a lot of guilt honestly.”
Ibarrondo’s mother knew her daughter was going through unimaginable pain.
“She went through a lot within a couple of years,” Val Ibarrondo said. “You don’t even think it’s possible – you think it only happens to old people. It was hard for me because she had dedicated so much of her time to basketball and training and tournaments, and she had missed out on so many things with her friends.
“We would tell her, ‘There’s always going to be another weekend to do this with your friends,’ and she would miss out on those things. After she lost Gabbie, she kind of got angry at basketball because it took her time away from Gabbie that she can’t ever get back.”
Shortly after her post-banquet conversation with Gallagher, Ibarrondo approached her coach after an AAU practice.
“She said, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to do basketball. What’s the point?’” Gallagher recalled. “She was not in a great place.
“She and I just talked, and I said, ‘Listen, if basketball is not what makes you happy anymore, that is totally fine. You can leave right now. I want you to do what makes you happy, but you’re not going to quit basketball and not do anything, so you need to find something else in your life that gives you purpose. So, if you want to quit basketball to join the track team or join the swim team or be in a play, that’s totally fine.’ I said, ‘I really want you to think about this – this is an important year for you for AAU. You’re going into your junior year. Really take the time – if you need the next month off, that’s fine. You do what you need to do for you.’
“I told her, ‘If you want to leave, Lola, I would never stop you from doing that. Your mental health comes first. If you need to take a break, take it, but you can’t take a break to go home and sit on the couch.’”
Coach John Gallagher knew that his super soph was going through an impossibly difficult time and was grateful she felt comfortable talking to Meg.
“When grief is first experienced during adolescence when coping skills are only just beginning to surface, specifically during the teenage years, it can be devastating,” the Redskins’ coach said. “Her struggle during this time was significant and heartbreaking to witness.
“Many adolescents have an adult understanding of the concept of death but do not have the experiences, coping skills, or behavior of an adult. For bereaved teens who haven’t yet experienced the landslide of emotions related to loss, most will not possess sufficient self-care knowledge to properly cope. I closely monitored Lola during these times and was in contact with her mom on what I had been seeing.
“As a coach, sometimes you are with these young people as many hours a week as a parent and are able to see them in a different environment when they are around their peers. The mental health of our athletes must be held in the same light as their physical health and skill development.”
For Gabbie…
Ibarrondo, according to Meg Gallagher, never stopped coming to basketball, but she did take time for herself when she needed it.
“After a little while, she started to come back around, and she realized, ‘I do kind of need basketball, it’s keeping my head straight.’” the Redskins’ assistant said.
“I feel like I’m enjoying basketball this season,” Ibarrondo said. “It’s still stressful, but my teammates really do help with everything.”
Attending Neshaminy is also a whole lot easier these days.
“The second year is definitely treating me a lot better,” Ibarrondo said.
Ibarrondo has come a long, long way since those difficult days and weeks after she lost her best friend, and the Neshaminy junior acknowledges she has changed.
“I realize we have to live our lives because not every day is promised – we have to be careful,” she said. “I keep my loved ones close now because I didn’t realize before how important it is.
“You might avoid calling your distant aunt because you don’t feel like it, but you really should. You really should do stuff because things can happen so quickly. Sometimes I do choose my friends over basketball because I just want to experience things with them, and I want to emphasize my relationships now, but I feel basketball is good for me because I turned the pain I was feeling into motivation.”
There’s no mistaking the loss of a pair of friends had a profound impact.
“She’s still working through it obviously, but it did make her stronger,” Val Ibarrondo said. “It did make her hold closer the people around her and value every minute she has with them, for sure.”
At school, Ibarrando is near the top of her class.
“When everything first happened with her friend, she was worried about going back to school because she took some time off,” Meg Gallagher said. “She has been able to go back to school, and she’s killing it academically. Just last month she was chosen as student of the month at Neshaminy, which is huge. The school has thousands of kids.
“It would have been very easy for her to throw in the towel as far as school goes and basketball. Major credit to her for doing the work and doing what she needed to do. That just shows she puts that work in on the court, and she puts it in herself off the court as well. The turnaround – to be named student of the month, and you can just see – she looks lighter. For her to have the confidence and ability to share her story says a lot about her – she picked herself up and is helping others.”
“When speaking with her mother, she told me ‘Lola would love to tell everyone about Gabbie,’” coach John Gallagher said. “Watching Lola on a daily basis trying to handle such tragedy was wounding me as a coach.
“What she has experienced has given her a maturity level that has carried onto the court. I am inspired by her recovery and growth as a young adult and basketball player. Her performance on the court this year has clearly exceeded last year’s output and the expectations of our coaching staff.”
Gabbie Devine is never far from Ibarrondo’s thoughts. There’s a tattoo on her right forearm with her best friend’s name and a sunflower. Devine, an artist, loved to paint, and sunflowers were one of her favorite things.
“I feel like it’s part of my job to keep doing this for Gabbie and – I don’t know how to word it but keep on going for her and keep spreading her messages and keep her name alive,” Ibarrondo said. “She would literally give the shirt off her back for you, no matter what. She was an amazing person.”
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The Hidden Oppenent: 2020 Neshaminy graduate Olivia Scotti along with a DeSales University teammate organized their basketball team’s very first Mental Health Awareness Game. Over the summer, Olivia applied to start a DeSales chapter for the non-profit: The Hidden Opponent: https://www.thehiddenopponent.org
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