Basketball
Favorite athlete: Dwayne Wade
Favorite team: Miami Heat
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning the East Coast Nationals with my AAU team.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: When my team played an entire game with the fire alarm sounding because it was accidentally set off and wouldn’t turn off.
Music on playlist: Rap and Hip Hop
Future plans: Become a doctor
Words to live by: “If your dreams don’t scare you, they are too small.”
One goal before turning 30: Move to Miami
One thing people don’t know about me: I have two older siblings.
By Mary Jane Souder
Nicole Blaustein is having herself quite a year on the basketball court.
The Council Rock South senior is averaging 17.8 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2 assists and four steals a game for a Golden Hawk squad that is vying for a postseason berth.
While those numbers are impressive by any standard, they’re something close to ridiculous when considering that Blaustein, who is right-handed, has played the last two seasons with torn cartilage in her right shoulder. It turns out she was scheduled to have surgery back in April, but that was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yes, she could have had surgery during the summer, but Blaustein’s passion for basketball won out in the end.
“I really wanted to have my AAU season and definitely have my senior season of high school, so I knew that wasn’t really an option anymore because I knew I definitely wanted to be able to play since it’s a long recovery,” said the CR South senior, who is in the top one percent of her class academically. “It was really tough for me to decide because at first I was thinking of possibly giving up my AAU season to have my senior season, but then I decided I really wanted to be able to play both.”
And play both she has. That’s not to say it’s been easy. It hasn’t.
“It’s been a little bit of a struggle,” she said. “It definitely is exacerbated during the season, but it’s something I play through because I know the alternative – which is sitting out – was not really an option for me.”
As a junior, Blaustein had her shoulder taped before games and played well enough to earn second team all-league honors. This year, she has opted to forego the tape and has found the secret to playing through the pain.
“It’s interesting – the adrenaline during the game kind of allows me to keep on going and not really pay much attention to it during the game, but it’s more after the games that it’s sore,” Blaustein said.
A two-year captain, Blaustein surpassed the elusive 1,000-point mark, joining Alex Wheatley as the only players in the 20-year history of the school – male or female - to reach that milestone.
Not to be forgotten is the fact that – unbeknownst to Blaustein at the time – she played her sophomore season with a broken kneecap.
“She never complained about the pain either then or in the last two years,” Rock South coach Blair Klumpp said. “She’s had a serious shoulder injury and played through it last year with physical therapy and rehab with plans to get it operated on in the spring, go through rehab and get fully healthy for the first time in years.
“She decided she didn’t want to miss her senior year and is kind of in a pain management mode with physical therapy. She never complains about it, and she fits the PT in with the rest of her schedule. She makes it work, but it’s a serious injury, and she’s playing so well this year all around.”
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Blaustein’s first taste of competitive sports was on the soccer field when she was three years old. Basketball entered the picture when she was in second grade, and it wasn’t long before she was hooked.
“It was just something I was always interested in,” she said. “It was my dad who got me into it. I used to always shoot around at my house with my brother (Josh).
“We’d always play pickup games together. I think that’s where it started. I’d play outside with my dad and brother, and I got into the sport and really enjoyed it and continued.”
She joined the AAU basketball circuit at a young age, originally with the Upper Makefield Heat. She stepped into the varsity starting lineup when she entered Rock South as a freshman and never left.
“The original plan was to have her play off the ball,” Klumpp said. “It’s tough to ask a freshman to come in and be the primary ball handler. Outside of quarterback in football, point guard may be the most important and analyzed position in sports.
“On top of that, she was replacing Payton Spadaccino (Bloomsburg University) who was all-league and had a stellar career here. Before Payton was Alexis Hofstaedter, who is arguably one of the top five athletes to play here. That’s a lot for a freshman to come in and handle.”
Although only a freshman, Blaustein proved to be one of the Golden Hawks most consistent and capable ball handlers.
“I still viewed her as more of a combo guard and scoring guard,” Klumpp said. “After she scored a freshman record (boys or girls) 322 points and was honorable mention all-league, I told her we are going to try something different her sophomore year.
“She took that all in stride, and that speaks to her maturity. It also gave us an opportunity to get Carley Irvin in the backcourt and give us stability there for three years. Nicole’s buying into that change was big for us.”
The shoulder injury occurred the summer prior to Blaustein’s junior year during an AAU game. While it might be easy for some to wonder what might have been, the senior standout is not in that number.
“I never really looked at it as a negative – what could have been,” she said. “I was always just grateful that I was able to play through it.
“It definitely was a tough decision at the time, but I made the right decision to just play through it because it was important to me to play my senior year.”
Klumpp is glad she made that choice.
“She’s going to have her career best year in assists, field goal percentage, low in turnovers, and she’s been very efficient and done everything we asked,” the Golden Hawks’ coach said. “I think she’s done a really good job of understanding why defenses guard her like they do and adjusting to it within our system. She’s really grown as a player.
“Statistically, the last two year her turnovers have dropped, and her effective field goal percentage has increased. There are some really good players in our league. Ava (Sciolla), Reese (Zemitis) and Jaden (Wan) probably headline the group, but Nicole has had the type of all-around year to be mentioned in that group. She’s been very good.”
This past year, Blaustein played her final AAU season with the Mid-Atlantic Magic under Archbishop Wood coach Mike McDonald.
“She’s good at driving through traffic and still finishing with both hands, which is important, and defensively, she moves her feet well and she’s competitive,” McDonald said. “She’s a nice person, and she’s a smart kid so she understands angles and things like that. She competes hard, and when you compete hard and have a good attitude, good things typically come to you.”
Next year, Blaustein is looking to either walk on to a college program or compete at the club level.
“There was never really an exact end goal in sight,” she said of her basketball future. “It was always just to see what would best suit me for after high school.
“I wanted to keep my options open, but academics always came first for me. I wanted to pick my school based on that first. Basketball is something I knew I wanted to continue to play at least through some kind of club team or try and walk on to a team.”
Blaustein’s resume off the hardwood is even more impressive than her accomplishments on the court. She is actively involved in the Travis Manion Club and the National Honor Society. She is also member of the Science Honor Society, Rho Kappa National Honor Society (a social studies honor society), the English Honor Society and the Spanish Honor Society. She has taken nine AP classes, five this year. All of the while, Council Rock was using a hybrid system during the COVID-19 pandemic and has only recently allowed students to return for five days a week, which made basketball even more significant.
“I think it was helpful from the social aspect on the team just to get to see everyone during the school day,” she said. “Also, being able to have a season was really helpful during a time when we couldn’t go into school because you still had that social aspect of spending all that time with your teammates during practices and games.”
In terms of career, Blaustein – who will major in biology – has her sights set on becoming a doctor. She was recently accepted to her top choice, the University of Virginia, which has an admissions rate of only 15.4 percent for out-of-state students.
“Research is really interesting to me, but I’m also interested in pursuing some kind of profession as a (medical) doctor,” she said.
Blaustein’s final high school season is coming down the home stretch, and she leaves with no regrets.
“Basketball was definitely a major aspect of my high school experience,” she said. “There’s a lot to say about the team camaraderie – that’s a big aspect of playing the game.
“It’s really cool to spend time with my teammates I’ve been playing with for three or four years, and it’s really exciting to see year to year how we improve together and improve as a team as a whole. I learned a lot about myself as a person, and I definitely grew a lot as both a person and player throughout my four years. Also, my role on the team changed a lot, but it’s definitely been a growing experience for me.”
While Blaustein’s basketball accomplishments speak for themselves, that’s just the tip of the iceberg according to her coach.
“What’s most impressive about Nicole is her overall character,” Klumpp said. “She’s a tremendous representative of our program both in school and the community. She’s in the top 1 percent of her class, in multiple national honor societies, member of multiple clubs, volunteers in the community. She is setting herself up for a very successful future, and I am very proud of her on and off the court.”
