Basketball
Favorite athlete: Megan Rapinoe
Favorite team: The U.S. Women's Soccer National Team (besides CBE girls basketball of course)
Favorite memory competing in sports: Beating C.B. West in overtime my sophomore year
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: I was sitting on the bench when a girl on the opposing team ran to save the ball, jumped onto me, and flipped and broke my chair.
Music on iPod: Pop
Future plans:To attend and graduate college
Favorite motto: “Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.”
One goal before turning 30: Travel across Europe
One thing people don’t know about me: I want to work in an art-related industry.
By Mary Jane Souder
Megan Lapioli does not take her time on the basketball court for granted.
“You can’t ever tell when you’re not going to be able to play,” the Central Bucks East senior said. “I tell the girls that all the time.”
Lapioli found out the hard way just how quickly that opportunity can be taken away. Not just once but twice.
As a freshman and newcomer at Central Bucks East, Lapioli, who had moved to the area from New Jersey, was injured at a preseason practice.
“The season hadn’t even started,” she said. “I fell, and when I got up, I remember looking down, and it looked like my arm had a second elbow.
“I had completely snapped both of the bones in my forearm. At that point, I barely knew the team. I had just started. I went through surgery, got plates and screws in my arm.”
Although it wasn’t the ideal way to start her first season with a new squad, Lapioli was embraced by her teammates.
“My teammates did such a great job of including me,” she said.
By midseason, Lapioli returned to the court, but the broken arm set her back.
“I had been in a full arm cast a few weeks, so I didn’t have full range of motion in my elbow,” she said. “Even now, anyone on my team can tell you – my left arm is physically weaker, but I just had to get through it.”
After playing mainly jayvee as a sophomore swing player on a squad with five senior starters, Lapioli was seeing significant time for the varsity last year. Until East’s game at North Penn midway through the season.
“I remember it so well,” Lapioli said. “Someone threw a long ball, and I jumped up to try and catch it, and I took an elbow to the face.
“I just remember going down – there was blood everywhere. Our assistant took me away from the game, so it could keep going on.
“Coach Potash came up to her and said, ‘Is she going to be able to play?’ Coach was like – ‘No, her nose is on the side of her face.’”
A trip to the hospital confirmed that Lapioli had broken the bone in the bridge of her nose.
“I was sitting there, and my nose was so crooked – all I wanted them to do was fix it,” she said. “They moved it back a little, but you could still tell it was broken. It was so swollen.”
The injury required two surgeries, and Lapioli was sidelined the remainder of the season.
“The first time it was definitely easier to go through it,” she said. “When I broke my nose, it was so hard because we had been growing so much as a team, and I had been growing with the girls. I just loved playing with them.
“Having that taken away halfway through the season when you’re going pretty well, it’s tough to just sit there and watch. If we had won the last game (an opening round district game against Boyertown), I would have been able to play the next game.”
This season, Lapioli is a co-captain with Kyra Scaliti.
“For us, it was almost a no-brainer,” coach Liz Potash said. “We had two seniors in the program, but it wasn’t just that they were seniors that made them leaders to be captains, but she’s a really good leader.
“She’s a person the kids respect and look up to. She’s a positive person and works hard. I can’t say enough good things about her.”
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Playing basketball was a natural choice for Lapioli, although she tried other sports as a youngster.
“I remember playing soccer, but my mom was a basketball player, so I was always kind of drawn to basketball,” said Lapioli, whose mother played four years at Bucknell University. “Ever since second grade, basketball has been my main sport.”
It was basketball that gave Lapioli an immediate connection when her family moved into the area the summer before her freshman year.
“Preseason, I got right into it, and I got to know the basketball team before I knew anyone else,” she said. “I went through different friend groups as I was trying to find who my friends were, but I always knew the team was my friend.”
Lapioli was an eager student of the game, and Potash recalls a practice her sophomore year when Lapioli stayed after practice to make certain she understood the team’s out-of-bounds plays.
“She wanted to write down the out-of-bounds plays we run because I don’t hand them out to the kids, and she just wanted to make sure she had them,” the Patriots’ coach said. “She’s a smart basketball player.
“She works really hard, and she’s a positive person. She’s very dedicated. She comes to every workout in season and out of season. She’s just a really well-rounded good person, very bright academically.”
Lapioli – a straight A student – takes a courseload of honors and AP classes and boasts a weighted GPA of around 4.25. Education has always been a priority for Lapioli, who has not made a final college choice but plans to focus on communications design.
A member of the National Honor Society, she also is a committee head for East’s first THON, and she is an officer for Athletes Helping Athletes.
“(That is) honestly one of my favorite programs we have in the school,” Lapioli said. “Last year was the first year we started it, and it’s been so incredible.
“The people that are involved are so invested in it. They love the kids with disabilities that get to come and be a part of something. It’s just so neat to see. That’s something I really do want to continue with.”
For now, Lapioli is making the most of her final high school basketball season.
“Especially because I know basketball is not going to be my priority in college, so this is it for me,” she said. “I just want to have fun and be with the team.”
