Thanks to our continued partnership with Univest Financial, SuburbanOneSports.com will once again recognize a male and female featured athlete each week. The recognition is given to seniors of high character who are students in good standing that have made significant contributions to their teams or who have overcome adversity. Selections are based on nominations received from coaches, athletic directors and administrators.
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Female Athlete (Week of March 22, 2023)
Casey Harter is an offensive player’s worst nightmare. Just ask Katie Yoder or, for that matter, anyone who has been the focal point of the Souderton senior’s defense. The Pennridge senior was one of the SOL’s top scorers, averaging over 18 points a game during a standout season and routinely put up big numbers. Except when she faced Harter. In three games against Souderton this year, Yoder – with Harter assigned the task of containing her - averaged just over nine points and had her lowest point output of the season in Pennridge’s opening round loss to Souderton in the SOL Tournament when she scored only five points. “It definitely was not fun,” said Yoder of going against Harter. “She stays with you all the time – no matter where you are, she’ll always be there. As much as I tried to get away, she’d still be there. She uses her length to her advantage, she’s super athletic, super quick and she doesn’t foul. She knows where to be at the right time, and she has a super high IQ for defense.”
The list of players Harter has haunted during a four-year varsity career is a lengthy one. Since she stepped on the court as a freshman, the senior point guard was assigned the task of defending the opposing team’s top offensive weapon. “I was a freshman with a bunch of seniors, and the first game I probably started on the other team’s best player,” Harter said. “From there, all four years, defense was my thing, and this is where it got me.” Where it got Harter is a scholarship to play basketball in the Big Ten for Northwestern University. In her 19 years at the helm, Souderton coach Lynn Carroll – whose team’s defense has been its calling card - has had her share of players who have excelled on the defensive end. “Defensively what Casey could do when guarding the other team’s best player - she’s at the top of the list in terms of defenders we’ve had,” the Indians’ coach said. “She’s just incredible. She started every game of her career except the Springfield-Delco game in playbacks this year when she didn’t play (due to an injury). We had her playing kids like Maddie Burke who was a senior at CB West when Casey was a freshman (and is now playing for Villanova University), which just goes to show you the belief that we had in her that early on in her career. That continued for four years.”
What makes Harter so effective? “It’s obviously the length and the speed and all that stuff you need to defend at that level, but it’s the desire – that’s what makes it happen,” Carroll said. “She never takes a play off, never. She’s physically able to do that because she takes care of her body. She’s training in the offseason, lifting weights. She’s always in shape, so that allows her to go and play the way she wants to play.” If Harter was only a standout defender, she would be special, but the 5-10 senior point guard elevated her offensive game every year and is able to score at all three levels. That improvement didn’t just happen. “At this point, everybody is well aware of the effort that she put in during the offseason from one season to the next,” Carroll said. “Anyone who has followed our program at all – it’s extremely obvious, and anything that was determined to be a weakness, she made sure by the next year it wasn’t anymore. Offensively is one of the biggest areas. To say she was a hesitant shooter as a freshman and sophomore – that’s probably not strong enough of a word. From then to what she is now – this season she didn’t hesitate to shoot ever when she thought it was a good shot.”
As a freshman, Harter averaged 7.4 points a game and earned All-SOL honorable mention. Three years later, the gifted senior averaged 16.1 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists. She connected on 51.8 percent of her shots from 2-point range and 37.2 percent from beyond the arc. She is an 82.4 percent foul shooter and is the consummate floor general. Adding an exclamation mark to a stellar career, Harter surpassed the 1,000-point mark this season.
Academics have always some first for Harter, who is an honors student and member of the National Honor Society. She is uncertain of her major but is interested in chemistry and the sciences. She is a member of the school’s athletic leadership council as well as several clubs. “I wonder where Casey will be 10 years from now,” Carroll said. “She’s got it all – she’s incredibly smart, incredibly talented, incredibly driven. She can be whatever she wants to be.”
To read Harter’s complete story, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/casey-harter-00105569
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete (Week of March 22, 2023)
North Penn senior Mario Sgro firmly believes that the way you perform on the basketball court reflects the way you live your life. Do you look to your teammates to help make you better? When you make a mistake, are you aggressive on the boards in order to get another shot? Are you willing to do the little things that add up to success? And of course, when the game is on the line, are you calling for the ball or are you content to let a teammate take that shot? “People say you play basketball the way you live your life, you can tell if somebody’s had it hard by how they play basketball,” Sgro said. “You can tell someone’s character on the court – if they run and hide when the score is tied or if they fight back. I like the big moment, all the pressure. That’s when everything’s at its best, when you really have to perform. That’s when everything really matters. I don’t think it’s anything you can teach or you can learn. Either you’re competitive or you’re not.”
It should come as no surprise that Sgro has been able to rise to the occasion in high-pressure situations numerous times throughout the Knights’ history-making season on the hardwood. His 4-for-4 shooting from the foul line down the stretch helped North Penn rally to a 53-47 win over Neshaminy in early January, snapping a North Penn losing streak and helping right the ship. In a late-January tilt against Souderton, Sgro scored all 10 of his points in the fourth quarter as the Knights edged the Indians, 50-47. And with a state tournament berth on the line against Coatesville, Sgro keyed a last-minute North Penn rally with a jumper for two points, then hit both ends of a one-and-one after being fouled on the next Knight possession. The Knights would hold on for a 64-60 victory in the District One Class 6A second-round game. “Moe has the knack where the bigger the moment, the more he loves to step up and make big plays,” said North Penn basketball coach John Conrad.
Sgro can be a vocal leader when needed – in fact, he said he’s tried to be more vocal in his role as a senior tri-captain – but also provides an ideal role model both in practice and during games, where he’s adept at making things happen both with and without the basketball. “Moe’s always been a great worker in practice,” Conrad said. “He never takes practices or plays off. We usually pair up him and Norman Gee in practice, those two have similar mentalities, they don’t like to lose, and they get the best out of each other. And Moe’s not afraid if someone’s not pulling their weight, he’ll get after them. He’s not afraid to say to something. But he’s also the kind of player where he does not need the ball in his hands, but still finds a way to contribute. That’s huge and it’s a lost art. You’re out there for 32 minutes in a basketball game, the ball is rarely in your hands, so you’ve got to find other ways to contribute. He led the team in assists-to-turnover ratio, he always guards other team’s best guard. He rebounds well, he’s extremely unselfish, he’ll make the big pass or he’ll make the big shot. Just by watching him play, the other kids would benefit tremendously from that.”
Having now completed two athletic campaigns in his senior year – he played football last fall, Sgro is back on the baseball diamond for a Knights team that is determined to move forward and vastly improve on last season’s 8-11 overall record. “I remember watching Mario when he was a young kid playing for Nor-Gwyn, and it’s awesome to see him develop and grow as an athlete,” Manero said. “He is a fast, athletic kid who can do a lot of things on three separate playing surfaces. That’s a rare athlete these days.”
Sgro is still narrowing down his options for what happens once he trades in his batting helmet for a mortarboard and walks the halls of North Penn for the last time. He’s looking to study sports medicine in college in pursuit of a possible career as an athletic trainer. He’d like to play baseball in college, and is considering his opportunities at several local universities as well as junior colleges.
To read the remainder of Sgro’s story, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/mario-sgro-00105580
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