Basketball
Favorite athlete: Elena Delle Donne
Favorite team: San Antonio Spurs
Favorite memory competing in sports: Going to Washington, D.C., and Altoona with my team.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Missing a wide open layup on a fast break.
Music on iPod: All Music
Future plans: Become a Physical Therapist
Words to live by: “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”
One goal before turning 30: Finish Undergraduate and Graduate School and become a Physical Therapist.
One thing people don’t know about me: I used to play the flute.
By Mary Jane Souder
Sammy Lochner plays basketball for all the right reasons.
It might be easy to assume that the Abington senior was pushed toward pursing a career on the hardwood. After all, her father – Tom Lochner – is a collegiate basketball coach and was on the sidelines of the La Salle University women’s program for 23 years – six as head coach - and the past four as an assistant at the University of Delaware.
But there was never any pressure to play basketball. For Lochner, it’s about her love of the game.
“They always told me it’s my decision if I wanted to play, and just because we were a basketball family – I didn’t have to play basketball,” Lochner said.
But Lochner wanted to play, a passion that had an early start.
“My dad took me to all the practices, so I was in the gym before I could walk,” she said. “I went to all their games.
“I always liked going because I would always go with my brother and just play with him on the side courts. We would just play basketball all day.”
These days Lochner – who has accepted a basketball scholarship to St. Peter’s University – is the floor general for the Ghosts, and while she is capable of putting points on the board, her first instinct is to find her teammates.
“Sammy’s a pure point guard,” coach Dan Marsh said. “She’s kind of opposite Deja (Rawls) – Deja was a scoring point guard, and Sammy’s the old school pass-first point guard.
“Sammy’s strength is getting other kids the ball in a position to succeed. Even when Sammy drives, she’s going to look to pass first. She’s a pass-first kid.”
“It’s a good habit, but it’s also a bad habit,” Lochner said of her pass-first mentality. “I like getting my teammates open, but there are times when I should be taking the shot when the pass isn’t open.
“I feel like we all need to score more because Deja and Lizzie (O’Leary) were our scorers last year, so I feel I need to step up and look for my shot more than I have in other years. People have been trying to get me to change my mindset since I was a freshman, so it’s gradually gotten better.”
Lochner credits her father – who has never actually coached her – for his role in her development.
“He would help me out after my games and tell me what I needed to work on and what I did well,” she said.
Having a coach for a father might also explain Lochner’s grasp of the game.
“You could definitely tell she’s a coach’s kid,” Marsh said. “She came in very fundamentally sound, fundamentally above most of the kids we had.”
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Lochner grew up competing in three sports. Soccer entered the picture first and then came basketball and track. Basketball was always the frontrunner, and by the time she was in seventh grade, Lochner was competing on the AAU circuit.
As a freshman, Lochner found herself in the varsity starting lineup.
“Like Leah (Simmons), we’ve known Sammy since kindergarten since she’s come through our camps and clinics all the way up,” Marsh said. “She’s a kid that we’ve known for a long time, and her family has been part of our program for a long time.
“That year we identified our youth as our future. That’s when we started Sammy and Leah as freshmen and (sophomores) Deja and Gabby (Nolan) and Michael Harris. Sammy came in and was an immediate impact defensively and an immediate impact work ethic-wise.”
Although she admits it was initially intimidating, it wasn’t long before Lochner had a comfort level in her varsity role.
“The girls above me I’ve played with when I was younger, so I already knew them,” she said. “I had Leah with me too and they were accepting.
“I felt my role was more defense. I wouldn’t shoot as much. As I’ve grown over the years, I became more of a scorer.”
“Her strength is really she can defend anybody,” Marsh said. “That was the great thing having her come in as a freshman. We were putting her on established kids that she could just lock down.”
Last year, Lochner was an integral part of a SOL National Conference and district runner-up Ghost squad that advanced to the state quarterfinals. This year, she is a captain of a squad that boasts an abundance of youth, and according to Marsh, she has grown into the role of leader.
“It took a little while,” the Ghosts’ coach said. “She didn’t have to be a leader on this team. She had kids ahead of her that were leaders.
“This year she needed to be a leader, and now she’s a coach on the floor. She’s pulling kids aside saying, ‘You need to do this, you need to do that.’ Her leadership style is very friendly. You’ll never see Sammy rip a kid. She’ll always put her arm around her and say, ‘Hey, you can do this better,’ or ‘Your can do that better.’”
Lochner’s future on the hardwood is secure. She selected St. Peter’s from a final list that included University of the Sciences and Bloomsburg, drawn by the school’s close proximity to New York City and also her major.
Lochner, who also excels in the classroom, is looking to pursue a career as a physical therapist.
“A lot of people ask me if I ever had an injury,” she said. “I just like science and I want to still be involved in sports.”
A member of the National Honor Society, Lochner and O’Leary are putting in their service hours by helping out with a CYO basketball team, but for now, Lochner’s focus is on her high school squad as she looks forward to her final high school postseason run.
“I’m excited,” she said. “I think we’ve grown through the year. Our younger girls are stepping up. I feel like our bench is stepping up a lot. I think we’ll do okay.”
