Basketball, Softball
Favorite athlete: Bryce Harper
Favorite team: Philadelphia Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: Beating Souderton in the district softball playoffs after losing to them two seasons in a row and making it to states a few games later.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: I tripped over first base and basically face planted
Music on my playlist: Country, Taylor Swift
Future plans: Going to East Stroudsburg to play softball and study exercise science.
Words to live by: “Everything happens for a reason.”
One goal before turning 30: Travel to Europe
One thing people don’t know about me: I have three younger sisters.
By Mary Jane Souder
Marissa Perez never saw it coming.
The Plymouth Whitemarsh senior had absolutely no intention of trying out for basketball after three years away from the sport. And why would she? The all-state shortstop was committed to continue her softball career at East Stroudsburg and already had a packed schedule.
Adding basketball was not a consideration. At least that’s what Perez thought.
“I hadn’t touched a basketball since eighth grade,” she said. “Throughout high school, I obviously stopped playing. It was a running joke in my family – ‘Oh, maybe she’ll come back for a year.’
“I never thought that would be true. Even at the beginning of the year, if you had told me I’d be playing basketball, I never would have believed you. It all started with my sister (sophomore Joslyn Perez). She was like, ‘We don’t have many girls trying out. You should come out.’ I was like, ‘No, no, no.’”
When she was asked by coach Dan Dougherty and assistant TJ DeLucia to meet with them, Perez felt she owed them the courtesy.
“I decided to hear them out,” she said.
The coaches had a simple message.
“We had just graduated everybody from that phenomenal (state title) run we had,” said Dougherty, whose team had no returning seniors. “We needed someone that could be a senior leader, a mature adult in the locker room.
“We said, ‘Listen, we’re not going to throw anything at you like – ‘You’re letting the team down, this revolves around you.’ We just wanted a veteran presence on the team, and Marissa is a good athlete. We were like, ‘Please, please come play with us,’ and her sister was saying it too.”
Several days later, Perez found herself trying out for the team.
“I think tryouts were maybe four days later, so I had been to three or four optional workouts they were doing, but tryouts were early on in my return to the sport,” Perez said. “I walked into the gym the first day – I was so intimidated.
“It felt so awkward. I don’t think I made a single basket my first practice. I’m the oldest one in the gym, but I have no idea what I’m doing. I remember I was stuck by my sister’s side the entire practice. It was such a surreal feeling being back there.”
Fast forward to Jan. 4, a month into the basketball season. Marissa and Joslyn are both on the court with time winding down in overtime at New Hope-Solebury, and the Colonials are trailing by one. As time was about to expire, Joslyn hit nothing but net on a corner 3-pointer, giving PW the win and setting off an emotional celebration.
“That was the coolest experience ever,” Marissa said. “Just to see the work she puts in every day in the gym pay off in that moment in a big game – I have never been so proud of anyone.
“To be there and experience it with her was so cool and so special. It was such an unreal moment.”
It was an unreal moment that wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t opted to return to basketball, and perhaps no one appreciated it more than her softball coach – who also happens to be her father.
“That was just an amazing moment,” Mike Perez said. “We’ve watched that video over and over again – as soon as Joslyn makes the shot, she looks at her sister, and you can see Marissa cheering her on, and they run to each other. That was an awesome moment.”
Support is something her father (and mother) have given Perez plenty of since she made the decision to play basketball.
“As a coach, it’s exciting,” Mike Perez said. “I like to have well-rounded athletes. A lot of girls play multiple sports, and I try to encourage that.
“This is icing on the cake for Marissa, and that’s what she said when she was going back and forth with it. A lot of students look back with regret for what they didn’t do. She wasn’t going to let that happen. She was like – it’s my final year, let’s do it.”
Back to the beginning
The oldest of four sisters, Perez came by her love of sports honestly. Her mother (Nancy) was the original multi-sport athlete in the family, playing both basketball and
softball for four years at Norristown High School while her father played basketball. She began playing softball when she was around four years old, and around that same time picked up a basketball.
“Basketball was also big in my family,” she said. “All my cousins played, and my grandparents played. I played both growing up. I tried soccer for a little bit and volleyball for a little bit, but it was always softball and basketball for me.
“As I got older, I realized softball was my sport, and that’s the sport I chose to focus on. I played basketball through eighth grade. When I got to high school, I chose to focus on softball instead.”
A veteran of Plymouth Little League, Perez was part of the team that won a state championship when she was 10 years old. She played for several travel teams, including a travel team – Plymouth Rampage - started by her dad.
“It was just a bunch of local little league girls who wanted to play for the high school,” Perez said.
She moved on to play for the highly competitive PA Chaos and has been a starter at shortstop for her high school softball team since she was a freshman and a captain since she was a sophomore.
In January of her junior year, Perez committed to continue her softball career at East Stroudsburg University and, last spring, earned second team all-state honors.
“Around eight, nine, 10, I would look up at the college players, and I said – ‘That’s what I want to do,’” she said.
Perez’s success, according to her father, did not just happen.
“The first thing – and I’ve been lucky to see this from a young age – is just her work ethic,” Mike Perez said. “When she was younger, she would come home from school, knock out her homework and then go out in the backyard for hours, throwing the ball off the bounce-back net or hitting off a tee.
“She’s always looking to improve and get better. She’s her own hardest critic, for sure, and she wants to play the game the right way with teammates who have that same feeling. She’s a competitive kid, for sure, and she works hard to back it up and see those things come true.”
In past winters, Perez not only had Chaos practices two or three times a week, she also was active with Special Olympics, competing on PW’s unified bocce team as well.
Playing basketball meant she would have the not-so-little issue of trying to coordinate practices for basketball with her PA Chaos squad practices and her high school team’s workouts. She would also have to give up Unified bocce.
It was not a decision she came by lightly.
“We talked about this for weeks on end,” Perez said. “My parents were so supportive because it was always – maybe Marissa will go back to it. They were both fully for me playing, especially with my little sister.”
Her softball coaches agreed to work with her if she played basketball.
“My softball coaches have been the most supportive people,” she said. “I do work on my own for softball all the time. They are so understanding that I can’t get to everything.
“I go to softball when I can. It’s definitely a lot of rushing from basketball to softball, but they have worked with me through this whole process. I’m just really thankful for them.”
Back on the court
The feeling of intimidation on her return to the basketball court didn’t last, but the awkwardness didn’t disappear overnight.
“I remember the first day that I went to practice – we were learning plays,” Perez said. “A few of the girls had been doing the plays in the fall workouts, so they were like – just try your best.
“I was with the guards, and that’s my sister, AJ Avery and Kenna Winland, so I was practicing with three girls – this is their sport. I was so overwhelmed. I kept messing it up. That day I went home and said, ‘Joslyn, what am I doing?’ I felt so lost.”
It wasn’t long before Perez became more comfortable on the court.
“It was kind of muscle memory, and it kind of came back to me, but it definitely wasn’t a natural feeling, and you can’t fake it,” she said. “The first few practices I was overwhelmed. I was frustrated with myself that I wasn’t really good at it, but after a week or two, it started to come back. I started to get a little bit better. I truly do enjoy it. I look forward to practice, but it did take a little bit.”
Although just 5-5, Perez is a post player and contributes in ways that don’t always show up in the box score.
“Her role on our team is really that kid that screens, defends, rebounds and hits a shot if she’s open,” Dougherty said. “She has embraced that role.
“She is that kid that these young 10th graders and ninth graders can just rely on – look to her when things are going rough at practice. Marissa is that kid that picks everybody up. She’s always smiling, she’s pushing the kids to get better, and more importantly, she’s loving this experience.
“There’s a lot of pressure on Marissa when it comes to softball. She’s one of the stars of the softball team, but no one is asking her to be the star of the basketball team. We’re just asking her to be a role player and she’s loving it.”
Perez returned to basketball with realistic expectations.
“Obviously, I knew I wasn’t going to be a leading scorer,” she said. “This season has really taught me how to be a role player. I’m the only senior, and I’ve really tried to be a girl that these kids can look up to and just show them – you don’t have to be perfect all the time, you don’t always have to know what you’re doing, but if you work hard and try your best, good things will happen.”
A lot of good things have happened. Not the least of which is making a whole new set of friends.
“It’s interesting because I’ve become such good friends with these freshmen and sophomores who are three or four years younger than me, but they have become some of my best friends,” Perez said. “I look forward to seeing them every day. We hang out outside of the sport. I’ve been surrounded with people I never thought I’d be surrounded by, and I’m so grateful to all of them. I just really do love them all a lot.”
Perez is also a contributor on the court. She recently had nine rebounds in a win over Cheltenham and one night later had six steals.
“I go into the gym, and I might not always know where I’m supposed to be or know what I’m supposed to be doing, but I work really hard,” she said. “I think that’s where I fit in best. I’m definitely having a good time. This is such a different sport than softball, and I have such a different role than I do for softball.
“My teammates and my coaches are my biggest supporters, and to be able to walk into the gym where – I’m not scared to mess up. I know they’re so helpful, and I appreciate every single one of them for making this such an easy transition adding basketball back into my life.”
It’s a family affair
A special part of competing in high school sports for Perez has been the opportunity to play with her sister Joslyn, who is also a key member of the softball team.
“This has made us a hundred times closer,” Perez said. “Playing with my sister has been one of my greatest memories from high school. She’s my best friend, she is my biggest fan, and I’m her biggest supporter.
“There’s such an internal drive to compete with each other, and I think that’s truly brought out the best in each other in both sports. In basketball, she is always the first one to help me when I don’t know what I’m doing. In softball, she came in as a freshman, and I think I was able to do that for her. We’re each other’s safe people on the court and on the field., and that’s something really special that I’ll cherish forever.”
Playing softball for her father for four years in high school has made the journey even better.
“That is definitely an interesting dynamic sometimes,” she said. “How do you balance being my coach and being my dad? I think that through the years we’ve figured it out together.
“That’s also something so special. It’s like me, him and my sister – we’ve seen each other at our best and at our worst, and I think that’s something really cool not many people get to experience, but it’s literally been one of the best parts of my high school sports career.”
Off the court and diamond, Perez – who boasts a 4.67 GPA – is a member of the National Honor Society as well as the Business Honor Society, and she is part of PW’s International Baccalaureate program, but it is her involvement with Best Buddies that is a personal highlight. She is vice president of the club that encourages members to develop friendships with students who have intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“I love working with those students, being able to include them in my everyday life,” she said. “Some of the students come to my basketball games or my softball games. It’s some of my favorite relationships.”
On the subject of games, there’s still a lot of basketball to play this winter, but after 11 games, the young and inexperienced Colonials are 8-3.
Perez, according to her coach, has been a difference maker.
“They’re very different people, but it’s like Lincoln Sharp last year going out for our boys’ basketball team,” Dougherty said. “He is the reason they won the District 1 title. I know Chase Coleman, Qudire Bennett and Jaden Colzie get a lot of the credit, but they don’t make it there without Lincoln Sharp. He was the baseball stud that was like – let me go back to playing basketball for a season, and he was outstanding.
“Marissa is an athlete that knows how to play sports and be competitive. I try not to say it too much, but I do catch myself saying at practice, ‘Boy, Marissa, I wish we had you all four years.’ I’m so glad we have her – I don’t think we’d win without her.”
