Pennsbury junior Ava Sciolla made a verbal commitment to play basketball at the University of Maryland.
It was love at first dribble for Ava Sciolla.
And with her father, Frank Sciolla, a successful basketball coach, the Pennsbury junior grew up with a basketball in her hands.
“I think I’ve loved basketball from the moment I was handed one,” Sciolla said. “It’s definitely a grind and it’s a sacrifice every day, but I’ve learned to love that grind and sacrifice because of days like (Wednesday).”
The all-state guard is reaping the dividends for that grind and sacrifice, Wednesday announcing her college choice - nationally-ranked University of Maryland.
The Terrapins, during Brenda Frese’s 18 years as head coach, have 15 NCAA Tournament appearances, and they been to eight NCAA Sweet 16s, six NCAA Elite Eights and three NCAA Final Fours, winning the 2006 NCAA National Championship.
“I’ve been dreaming about being a Division 1 player since I watched Dalton Pepper and Lavoy Allen become Division 1 players,” Sciolla said of the Pennsbury basketball stars who played for her father when he was the boys’ coach. “The decision definitely took a lot of thinking for me, weighing every pro and con.
“Maryland has everything that I want and need as a player and as a student and as a person going forward in my life, so I knew that was the best possible place for me to be.”
Maryland entered the picture after Sciolla’s first U.S. Junior National Tournament of the summer in Indianapolis, Ind., with her Nike-EBYL Belles squad. In the Belles’ final game, the rising junior buried all seven of her 3-point attempts to cap an impressive tournament showing with the elite squad.
“I didn’t know if I was even going to have an AAU season because of corona,” Sciolla said. “However, we were lucky enough to have almost all of our games for my entire season live streamed. My team - we were personally lucky that nobody got corona over the whole summer, so we were able to play without any stoppages.
“Fortunately, I had a pretty successful first tournament. My shot was pretty on for a couple of the games that definitely stuck out.”
Three days after returning home, Sciolla found herself on the phone with Maryland’s legendary coach after receiving a text from her father telling her to “call Brenda Frese right now.”
“I was shaking – ‘What have we got to talk about?’” Sciolla said. “She got right into it and said she was offering me a scholarship. In that moment, my life changed.
“Even if she hadn’t offered me that first day, I loved talking to her so much just because our personalities are really similar. We’re both intense competitors. She’s a strong woman that I really look up to already. I’m unbelievably excited to be coached by her.”
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Wednesday’s announcement marked the end of a remarkable recruiting journey for Sciolla, who received her first Division One offer the summer heading into her sophomore year from Fordham University.
“It was stressful I would say from the end of July through the beginning of November,” she said. “Especially after Sept. 1, which is the day coaches can start to reach out to you.
“I was a little bit overwhelmed at times just because the first week after the first of September I couldn’t go out with my friends or leave my house 
because of how many calls I was getting, which I was incredibly lucky and excited for but at the same time it was a little bit stressful.”
Sciolla informed Frese of her decision on Sunday night after revealing her choice to her parents.
“She came in Sunday night and said I want to commit, and I said, ‘No, I don’t want to hear it,’” Frank Sciolla said. “I said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this right now because you can’t visit schools in the classic fashion?’ Recruiting has been different. I’ve spent 25 years doing this and I’ve been through a lot of big-time recruiting processes, and this has been unlike anything else.
“Before she told us what it was going to be, I wanted to make sure she had all the right reasons for why she was going to commit. My wife and I made her tell us that before she told us it was Maryland.
“I knew she wasn’t going to stay close. Once we were locked down for nine months, I could see more and more she wanted to go away. When we got shut down again last week, I think that was the time she gave it even more thought. Obviously, we’re thrilled - Brenda Frese is one of the best coaches in the country.”
The veteran coach was not all that surprised by his daughter’s choice.
“You have all these players over the years, and everyone wants something different,” he said. “Some people want to go and play right away, some people want to go somewhere they can go and have a great career, some people think about the pros.
“Ava wants to be part of a program where everyone has that same goal and they want to succeed and they want to get better.”
Sciolla entered high school hallmarked for big things on the basketball court. She could have gone anywhere as high school programs with impressive resumes rolled out the welcome mat. She chose to stay at Pennsbury, opting to continue with the friends she’d grown up with and leave her mark on a program that had fallen on hard times but was beginning its turnaround under her father.
“We were fortunate – we had girls in the previous years that got the ball rolling,” the Falcons’ coach said. “But would I have said when she was five years old – she’s going to commit to Maryland where she’ll have a chance to do what wants to do because she’s so much about competing against the best? I would have said, ‘No way.’
“She’s competitive, she wants to do things it takes to win. People say – her court vision, the way she passes the ball, her ability to score, and yes, I’m sure that opened the door for her, but it’s the things like how well she rebounds her position or takes the challenge of covering the other team’s best player. I think those are the things that separate the kids that say they want to be good and the kids that really are good.”
Last year, Sciolla - who averaged 14.5 points, 9.2 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 2.1 steals – led the Falcons to a share of the SOL Patriot Division title, a District One 6A runner-up finish and a spot in the state quarterfinals when the season was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
And if there’s pressure attached to committing to a national powerhouse, Sciolla has been down that road before, acknowledging there was pressure the moment she stepped onto the hardwood at Pennsbury.
“Absolutely, but I also think a lot of the pressure was put on by me because I put expectations on myself that I don’t necessarily think any or many others had for me,” she said. “I just wanted to be great because I live in a household with a man that is great and a coach that is great. I think that so-called pressure is just what I needed.”
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