Friday's Souderton/North Penn contest is an SOL Featured game, sponsored by Millennium Administrators. Check back for a complete game story.
They are teammates, they are friends and they are, in many ways, a family, albeit a basketball family.
It’s the kind of thing that happens when players have been together for most of their young lives. Talk to Gabby McAndrews, and the Souderton senior can still clearly recall the first time she met teammate Carley Kendall.
“She was a giant,” McAndrews said. “I met her at Franconia Elementary School at my first (SHYBA) practice. We just clicked immediately.”
It’s been close to a decade since the Souderton teammates met playing community basketball, and now McAndrews, Kendall and their senior teammates are coming down the homestretch of their final high school season.
For all six seniors – McAndrews, Kendall, Liz Mower, Jackie Krevolin, Caitlyn Steinly and Lindsey Kwiatkowski – it has been quite a ride.”
“Gabby and I have been on the same team since we were seven years old – not only in basketball but in every sport we played,” Kendall said. “We have all been through SHYBA League. Whether we were rivals or on the same team, we have all been there.
“We just know each other, we know how each other plays, and we all get along so good. We’re not only teammates, but we’re friends.”
For the last four years, this year’s senior class has been an integral part of Souderton’s program.
“We’re really, really close as a team,” McAndrews said. “No one is out of the group. We all do things together because it’s going to be best for us on the court if we’re together off the court.”
“It’s really kind of special,” Kwiatkowski added. “We have grown so much from freshman to senior year, and we’re 
so close.
“We feel a bond and we can work together and play for a coach we’ve known for so long. We feel like we can accomplish anything this year that we put our mind to.”
Although this year’s roster boasts six seniors, the Indians have a relatively young team with only one junior and the remaining players sophomores and freshmen, and coach Lynn Carroll acknowledges she couldn’t ask for a better senior class to lead the squad.
“They do everything the right way,” the Indians’ coach said. “Part of that is that they’re a close-knit group within themselves, but oftentimes that lends itself to being exclusive of others.
“They’re very, very aware and understand – without me or any coach telling them – what it means to be a good teammate and a good leader. Yes, their best friends on the team are in the same grade as they are, but they’ll never exclude their other teammates.
“I don’t know that all underclassmen can say that about the seniors they knew moving through whatever sports program it is you’re talking about. It’s such a great example to set.”
Kendall, for one, remembers what it felt like to be underclassmen.
“We have always gotten along with the younger kids because when I was a freshman, I know I looked up to the seniors so much and wanted to fit in so badly,” she said. “That’s always been in the back of my mind – how they are looking at me now.”
Kendall, McAndrews, Mower and Steinly are captains.
“Carley and Liz were the captains last year, and they’re what you could call the obvious choice,” Carroll said. “They’re vocal leaders, they’re committed to the program, they’re two of the better players on the team, but it’s hard earned. It’s not just because they’re good. They’re very, very deserving.”
McAndrews and Steinly are new to the role of captain this season.
“Gabby really grew into this role toward the end of last year and into this year and is doing just as well with it and becoming more of a vocal leader, more of an encouraging teammate,” Carroll said. “Cait Steinly is just the perfect example of a kid who doesn’t get her way all of the time in terms of what happens once the game starts but is as engaged in a game as any kid I’ve ever coached and shows up to everything all season and is always there.
“All four of them bring different things and lead in different ways, but all four are just as effective as the other. I think we could just as easily throw Lindsey and Jackie into the mix. Even though they’re not technically captains, they’re leaders on the team.”
Kendall echoed that sentiment.
“Even though not all six of us are starters, everyone is a leader,” the Indians’ senior forward said. “All six of us lead the team, and I think that makes us a better team.
“This year especially, there’s no – you’re good, so you’re the leader of the team. It doesn’t matter at all for us. We all have our own part. It just really makes it special.”
Leaders, according to Carroll, are a reflection of the leaders that came before them.
“You can do your best to guide them and stuff like that, but behaviors like that are contagious,” the Indians’ coach said. “We do have a young varsity, and we have a really young jayvee team. I think the example that all of them set individually and collectively – we’re going to notice it for a long time in this program, way beyond their time.”
Although the Indians are 4-1 in conference play heading into Friday night’s game against North Penn, the season has had its rough spots, including a 36-20 loss to Central Bucks South.
“That night is not fun, and the next day at work or – for them – school isn’t fun,” Carroll said. “Everybody, including myself, is dreading going to practice, but you show up and you see kids like that, and it starts to go away.
“You get back to business and you remember why you do it. A lot of it really has to do with this senior class – how much they enjoy the game and how much they enjoy each other.
“They certainly want to win, but they want to have a good time doing it. It’s a fun group, a welcoming group, and they are one of the hardest working group of seniors I have ever had – and we have had some good groups.”
McAndrews admits it hasn’t hit her that this is her final go-round with teammates she has known for a lifetime.
“As we get down to the last few games, I’m sure it will come quicker than I think it will,” she said. “I don’t want to think about it.
“I’m having so much fun. We only lost one senior from last year, so being with this group of girls again is really amazing. We’re having so much fun together.”
“The whole team is very close,” Kwiatkowski added. “Not only am I friends with them when I play basketball, but they’re some of my closest friends outside of basketball too.
“We have so many good times together. We know how to work hard when it comes to the games and put everything out there.”
On Friday night, the Indians will take on archrival North Penn in what promises to be a tough test.
“Just knowing that we only have North Penn this game and the next game we play them to beat them - we beat them my sophomore year at home, and ever since then it’s been a goal,” Kendall said. “And CB East – we’ve never beaten East, and it just builds that much more excitement to try.
“We work so hard, and we’ve come such a long way since the beginning, and we know we have a chance.”
While some of her teammates have not thought about the fact that the season will be winding down shortly, Kendall has.
“In the fall league, I was like, ‘I can’t wait for the season. It can’t come soon enough,’” she said. “Now it’s here, and it’s like, ‘Wow, I just played my last first game.’ ‘Wow, I just played my last Wissahickon Tournament.’ It’s just crazy. I feel like it was just yesterday that it was all firsts. Now it’s all lasts.”
On Friday night, the six seniors will play North Penn on their home court for the final time.
“This is going to be one of the most difficult ends of the season for me,” Carroll said. “I can’t imagine coaching without them. It feels like they have been here forever – in a good way.
“Clearly, this is a talented group, but what they bring outside of that is the intangible.”
And it the intangibles that Carroll knows she will have a hard time replacing when next season rolls around.
Just the facts:
This year’s record: Souderton 4-1 SOL (7-3 overall), North Penn 3-2 SOL (7-4 overall)
Last year’s record: Souderton 12-10 overall (8-6 SOL), North Penn 17-8 (11-3 SOL)
Last meeting: Feb. 8, 2011 – North Penn 41, Souderton 25 (NP - Steph Knauer – 17 points, Lauren Crisler – 9 points; Souderton – Libby Wetzler – 6 points, Libby Wetzler – 6 points)
Last game: Perkiomen Valley 32, Souderton 31 (Bianca Picard – 12 points, Carley Kendall – 8 points)
North Penn 63, Quakertown 9 (Lauren Crisler – 19 points, Steph Knauer – 13 points, Vicky Tumasz – 9 points, Erin Maher – 8 points)
Souderton
Projected starters:
#5 – Liz Mower (5-7, Sr., Guard)
#11 – Gabby McAndrews (5-7, Sr., Guard)
#14 – Carley Kendall (5-11, Sr., Forward)
#21 – Libby Wetzler (5-10, Jr., Forward)
#25 – Bianca Picard (5-5, Soph., Guard)
The rest of the Indians:
#1 – Jackie Krevolin (5-3, Sr., Guard)
#3 – Allison Gallagher (5-8, Soph., Guard)
#10 – Katie O’Connor (5-2, Soph., Guard)
#22 – Caitlyn Steinly (5-5, Sr., Guard)
#31 – Sarah Derstein (5-10, Fr., Forward)
#33 – Hailey Kaunert (5-9, Soph., Forward)
North Penn
Projected Starters:#4 – Erin Maher (5-11, Soph.)
#10 – Emily Hagan (5-8, Sr.)
#14 – Brenda McDermott (5-7, Sr.)
#20 – Lauren Crisler 6-2, Jr.)
#40 – Steph Knauer (6-0, Sr.)
The rest of the Maidens:
#5 – Sierra Simon (5-7, Jr.)
#12 – Jenarosa Auriemma (5-5, Sr.)
#15 – Tehya Daneker (5-10, Jr.)
#22 – Vicky Tumasz (5-5, Soph.)
#24 – Leiana Dean (5-6, Fr.)
#34 – Amy Check (5-9, Sr.)
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