Basketball
Favorite athlete: Brian Dawkins
Favorite team: Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning SOL Freedom Division last year
Most embarrassing/funniest moment competing in sports: Me and my teammate got matching black eyes from the same tournament
Music on playlist: R&B (Kiana Lede), Afrobeats (Ayra Starr), and Country (Zach Bryan)
Future plans: Play at and graduate from Holy Family and become a Physical Therapist or Athletic Trainer
Words to live by: “If you wait for someone else to give you confidence, then you will be waiting your whole life.”
One goal before turning 30: Own a Camaro
One thing people don’t know about me: I have a collection of Marvel Pops!
By Mary Jane Souder
Roll back the calendar to Dec. 3, 2023.
In just the third game of last year’s basketball season, then junior Dani Brusha – the new kid on Lower Moreland’s squad - scored 16 points in the Lions’ close loss to Villa Maria Academy.
Despite the outcome, she made quite an impression on her coach.
“Dani Brusha was exceptional tonight,” LM coach Rich Becker said after the game. “I think this was the first time her new teammates fully realized how good she is.
“There were a few plays that she made where the coaches just looked at each other and said ‘wow.’ She is very effective attacking the basket.”
It turns out that performance wasn’t a fluke. Brusha made more than a few ‘wow’ plays over the course of a season that saw the Lions capture the SOL Freedom Division title and the Lions’ newcomer earned first team all-league honors.
It’s not an outcome either side could have imagined when Brusha, following in the footsteps of older sister Sam, earned a spot on the varsity as a freshman at Abington. But the family relocated in the spring of Brusha’s sophomore year.
“My grandpa was having a lot of health issues, and we needed to move in with him and my grandma,” she said. “Then we found a house that had an in-law suite, so we moved when I was a sophomore, but I finished my year at Abington. Junior year I switched because the house was in a different school district.”
That fall, Brusha found herself at Lower Moreland High School.
“It was definitely hard at first,” she said. “It’s a very different school. Abington is so much bigger.
“I’m the youngest (of four), and my whole family – everyone went through Abington except for me, so it was definitely big change.”
A change for Brusha perhaps but quite a gift to Becker.
“Yes, it was a huge gift,” the Lions’ coach said. “I also had her in class, and initially she was kind of quiet, coming into a new school.
“I was just impressed with how quickly she was able to make friends in school and how strong of a student she was.”
Basketball from the beginning
Brusha grew up in a sports family with basketball the sport of choice.
“We’re definitely a big basketball family,” she said. “But I played soccer and volleyball when I was younger.”
In second grade, Brusha got her first taste of organized basketball, and it wasn’t long before she joined the AAU circuit with Lehigh Valley/Penn Fever.
In the summer after her freshman year, Brusha was forced to narrow her sports to just one when she had surgery for a torn ACL.
“We’re not exactly sure when, but I had partially torn my ACL,” Brusha said. “I think I was playing on it for about a year when it was partially torn.
“For that first year, I didn’t feel anything except right before I got it checked out - I was having clicking problems. My knee would lock, but they said that might have been my meniscus.
“At that point, they were like – you’ve been playing on it for so long, you can keep playing on it. You might need surgery, you might not. I was having problems here and there, but it didn’t restrict my play at all, so I
didn’t really think about it.”
Until, that is, in May of her freshman year, she was jogging down the court, and her knee was bumped from the side.
“A girl hit me right in the knee and tore it fully,” she said. “It didn’t really hurt, but I stayed down. I was like, ‘Yup, it’s torn.’”
Still, it was a shock when it was confirmed that she had, in fact, torn her ACL and meniscus.
“It was devastating honestly because they did say there was a chance I might never need surgery,” Brusha said. “He said – ‘If there’s not a contact injury, you’re probably fine,’ but, of course, there’s contact.
“I was supposed to go in for an appointment, but they said – you don’t even need to come in because it’s fully torn. I remember my parents telling me – I just started bawling. I was so upset because I knew how long the recovery process was. It was definitely really upsetting.”
Brusha had surgery in June and was out of action until the following May, forcing her to watch her entire sophomore season at Abington from the sidelines.
“It was really difficult because at first – it’s the physical getting back, but then the mental side is really, really tough, having to sit there and go through a whole season of just watching,” Brusha said. “When you lose, you just wish you were out there, so you could help your team.
“It’s really lonely at times. You feel like you’re by yourself. You’re not living like normally because you’re not practicing, you’re not playing. It’s a whole different change of your life. It was really hard, but I have a great family, great friends, and with their help, it was easier, but it was still very hard.”
Back on the court
The following year, Brusha found herself at Lower Moreland, and basketball helped smooth the transition to a new school.
“I actually played for HVAA (Huntingdon Valley Athletic Association) when I was in seventh and eighth grades,” she said. “So, I knew some of the girls on the team already.
“That definitely made it easier, and obviously coach Becker is super nice – the whole coaching staff was super nice and welcoming.”
Listening to Becker tell it, Brusha’s transition was seamless.
“Once we got onto the basketball court, she led by example,” he said. “She was still kind of quiet, feeling her way. You could see throughout the year she became more comfortable, more vocal.
“This year she really is a true leader of our team.”
In an early season win over Villa Maria in December, the Lions rallied from nine down heading into the fourth quarter to earn the come-from-behind win. Brusha, according to her coach, played a starring role in the comeback.
“We couldn’t get anything going, and then she just flipped the switch and decided, ‘Okay, I’m going to make sure we don’t lose,’” Becker said. “She pulled up and hit the go-ahead 3-pointer with about a minute to go.
“She has the ability to kind of – ‘all right, it’s time to take over. Let me do it.’ She loves to compete.”
And if that means taking the big shot in crunch time, Brusha will answer the call.
“Everybody gets nervous in those times, but I feel like I have a lot of people who believe in me and give me confidence,” she said. “I kind of believe in myself, and I think that’s important.”
A captain, Brusha works tirelessly at her game during the offseason, and she can beat teams with more than just a 3-pointer.
“She has the ability to go to the rim, and she has the vision to pass off the dribble with either hand,” Becker said. “When she came back from the injury, she had the huge knee brace on. She would still get in the lane and create her own shot.
“When we did our summer league, she took her knee brace off, and she just had a whole other gear that she hadn’t had. She’s just got that explosiveness that not a lot of players have.”
A bright future.
Brusha’s basketball career is far from over. In October, she committed to continuing her career at Holy Family University. The decision to play collegiate basketball was an easy one for the Lower Moreland senior.
“The goal was always to play in college,” she said. “I was kind of trying to figure out which level I was going to be able to play at.”
In the end, it came down to Holy Family and Susquehanna. She chose Holy Family.
“I loved the atmosphere, and their coaches are so nice,” Brusha said. “I love their family aspect, their competitiveness, they’re – we over me, and I love that.
“I think they have a lot of the same ideals as my AAU program so that was really good. Obviously, Coach Burn (Bernadette Laukaitis) is so nice. I really liked it. It’s close to home. It checked all the boxes.”
Family is important to Brusha, who has two older sisters and an older brother, and she acknowledged the significant role they played.
“They definitely have had an impact,” she said. “When I was younger, I would go to all their games. I loved watching my sister play, I loved watching my brother play – growing up and watching a competitive environment.
“I still work out with my brother sometimes. See them playing definitely influenced me to play and find a love for the game.”
An excellent student, Brusha has her sights set on a physical therapy major
“Every teacher I speak to - she’s a phenomenal student,” Becker said. “One of the teachers in the school said, ‘She’s lowkey really smart.’ She’s not really outspoken in some of the classrooms, but she just consistently performs at a high level.
“That summarizes her. She never draws attention to herself – she just goes about her business, and she’s happy doing it. She doesn’t need the attention for validation. I have my Mount Rushmore of players I’ve coached and taught, and she’s right up there on that. She’s fantastic.”
