North Penn senior Sam Carangi became the 11th North Penn female to reach the 1,000-point milestone.
Basketball has been a family affair for Sam Carangi.
So it was appropriate that when the North Penn senior reached the elusive 1,000-point milestone in last Tuesday night’s win over Central Bucks West, the first person she sought out – after a giddy on-court celebration – was her mother, North Penn assistant Jen (Snell) Carangi, who also surpassed the 1,000-point mark during a stellar career at Archbishop Ryan.
“People in my family I haven’t seen a while came to the game, and they said, ‘This brought me back to when your mom scored hers,’” said Carangi. “It was kind of cool they got to see both me and my mom do it.
“It was really cool to have so many people there supporting me – past coaches and mentors and people I’ve known growing up. It just meant a lot that so many people were there supporting me.”
The journey leading up to Tuesday’s historic night was not an especially easy one for Carangi, who needed 25 points entering the preceding Friday night’s game against Central Bucks East. Battling an illness that sent her to the emergency room the preceding day, she scored seven in the East win and then nine more in North Penn’s win over Episcopal at the Maggie Lucas Classic at Philadelphia University.
She entered Tuesday’s game at CB West needing nine points, and those points didn’t come easily for the usually proficient shooter.
“I said to myself, ‘I’m not going to let it get to my head,’ but it did,” Carangi said.
Still three points shy of the mark entering the fourth quarter, she scored on a drive three minutes into the frame. The final point was the most difficult.
“Could I have made it any harder?” Carangi asked when it was over. “I airballed three threes, and the students were yelling, ‘Airball,’ and I’m like, ‘I know.’”
Through it all, Carangi maintained her sense of humor, smiling sheepishly at her team’s bench after missing a layup with 2:16 remaining.
“I was just laughing at that point,” she said. “I was like, ‘I don’t even know what to do anymore. I’ll just keep attacking the basket.’”
With 1:41 remaining, she stepped to the line for two fouls shots, and after seeing the first hit off the rim, Carangi made the second. The celebration was immediate as she leaped into the arms of teammate Jess Huber.
“She’s my best friend,” Huber said. “She’s always been there for me, and I don’t know where I’d be without her.
“We have each other’s backs, and that hug at the end symbolized that. I think I was more excited for her than she was for herself. That’s amazing. That’s a great milestone, and I’m just so glad she got it in this game.”
For Carangi as well as her coach, it was an immense relief.
“It was honestly like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders,” the senior point guard said. “People say that all the time. It actually felt like so much relief, and the team storming the court – it was just a really cool moment.”
“I’m so happy that she finally got her thousand points because I would just like to see her relax and have fun again,” coach Maggie deMarteleire said. “It was right there for several games, and I feel as though the weight just got heavier and heavier for her.
“I’m hoping this is a happy milestone for her. She works so hard, and everything that’s coming to her is well deserved. She has such a high basketball IQ on both sides of the floor, and that is what makes us go. Also, she just is a nice girl. She doesn’t say anything bad about people. Anthony Carangi (her father) and I were saying on the court after the game that she’s a good kid, and isn’t that the most important thing?”
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Carangi acknowledges that scoring a thousand points was never a goal.
“It wasn’t really ever on my mind because I’m the point guard for North Penn, so I always figured my job is to distribute the ball, and if I score, then great,” she said. “When I was only 180 away at the beginning of the season, I was like, ‘Okay, maybe I can do this.’”
The senior point guard is the 11th North Penn female to reach the historic milestone and fifth since 2012 under deMarteleire. She follows in the footsteps of Steph Knauer, Lauren Crisler, Vicky Tumasz and Mikaela Giuliani.
“I didn’t really start thinking about it until recently,” Carangi said. “I had the number in the back of my head, but I wasn’t really focused on it because I figured if it would happen it would happen.”
With the thousand-point milestone behind her, Carangi and her teammates can focus on the task at hand. The Knights are the top-seeded team in the latest District One 6A power rankings, and Carangi along with fellow seniors Irisa Ye and Jess Huber have been part of the varsity since they were freshmen and the Knights won their first ever district title.
“The three seniors – I feel like they’re a package deal,” deMarteleire said. “They’re all unique in their own way, but they’re three good kids.
“I know that Sam and Jess and Irisa all have the same goal in mind and they want each other to be happy. As a coach, you couldn’t really ask for anything more.”
Carangi has signed a letter of intent to continue her basketball career at Villanova University while Huber and Ye have signed with University of the Sciences.
“People say, ‘Your seniors have all signed. Don’t you feel like they’re just happy with that and they don’t play hard?’ I’m like, ‘No, that’s not how my seniors are,’” deMarteleire said. “I feel like they do bring out the best in each other.”
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