Swish! A community gains a win
You have heard the following. When it comes to young children and their playing sports, you may even believe the following.
“Everybody is a winner.”
This time everyone is a winner.
The Mountain View Lady Eagles basketball team didn’t just take themselves all the way to the single-A state finals this past Friday, March 22nd in Hershey, PA; they took an entire community with them.
Yes, everyone who closely followed the team from the first game—or caught up with the Eagles toward the end of a truly incredible season—experienced a true win. This victory season both lifts and unites a rural, farming-based community that systematically values good, honest, hard work and a shared sense of family and community that supports each other through good times and not good times.
Nelson Jesse of Brooklyn, who is the son of Harford High School basketball players and is a basketball champ himself, speaks of the lunchpail mentality he knew as a Mountain View basketball player. Jesse, who won the prestigious Rush Simons Award for athleticism, is a Mountain View alum from the class of 1976. He shares how the 2024 Lady Eagles drew people together from all over the county and beyond. Going to the games and cheering on the team enabled Jesse to connect with people he either hasn’t seen in such a long time or enabled him to meet fans including those who graduated with his brothers back in the 70s.
“I caught up with grandparents and other family members of the girls on the court,” he said with joy. “Those [generational] connections are deep and wonderful.”
Jesse spoke of how these heartfelt connections couldn’t happen anywhere else but there in the gym as he and the close-knit community around him watched these dedicated athletes play.
Peg Smith of Harford agrees. “Traveling to Berwick and to Hazelton [during the playoffs] was like old home week. Family and extended family gathered to support the girls. It was really like a party with active and retired school bus drivers, 4H parents, retired teachers and friends who haven’t gathered in a while.”
Summarizing that it was a real win for all, Smith truly praises the team. “The girls team overcame obstacles. As they moved their way to the state championship, they played against private schools who had much greater financial means to support their athletes. To support and appreciate how hard these girls worked to get to the level they achieved is inspiring not just to this team, but to all of us.”
With palpable energy easy to catch, Smith shares how the oneness of this team from a hard-pressed corner in Pennsylvania truly pulled the wider community together. “The girls’ closeness shows us how we can all get closer.”
Missy Heller, a longstanding fan from Brooklyn, adds this is the first huge win for the community since Covid began. As the girls kept winning and the state championship drew near, the buzz about where and how to get tickets to future games began. Conversations about how fans would wear the team colors of blue or orange and then white or black just took off. Carpools to the games began. A chartered fan bus followed the chartered team bus to Hershey.
“Conversations and newfound connections brought so many people together,” Heller says. “And it was always about the girls. Their composure and their sense of how to be athletes both on and off the court truly lifted a lot of people.”
The Lady Eagles faced Bishop Guilfoyle and inaccurately have been called the runners-up of the game. The Eagles’ score was less than the opposing team in the end, but by no means did this team do anything less. It was always the opposite. They did more.
The Mountain View School District celebrated the girls. At the elementary school, the team paraded through the halls among students as young as four-years-old. With light in his dark eyes, one kindergarten boy found and shared such excitement in seeing the team pass near his classroom.
Jaimie Mirabelli, a second-grade teacher, invited her students to write notes to the team. She later posted to social media. “These girls may see themselves as just HS athletes, but to my elementary students, they are role models, inspiration, and the greatest team in America.”
Mirabelli embraces what many felt as they participated with signs and cheers along the route the team bus took from the school to the interstate. In what can be called a parade to celebrate who and how the Lady Eagles are to their community, she adds, “No matter the outcome of the game, may you girls always remember the impact you already have made both on the court and off the court.”
An escort that included the Harford Volunteer Fire Company along with state police and other local fire companies accompanied the girls’ bus from the school to the interstate.
Chad Batzel, the captain of the Harford company, hopes the girls carry the sense of all they have accomplished for the community well into their futures. They have done so much to spark, engage, rally, inspire and unite the school and community.
“I’m just blown away with the absolute outpouring of support for the team from our little community. Back when the boys’ soccer team went all the way to states years ago, we did the escort celebrations for them. Now we got to do it for the ladies’ basketball team? Wow. I’m just excited to be a small part of it and proud to be a member and alumni of this little school district with big eagle pride!”
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I devote this page on my website to my weekly columns printed in The Independent. That I can place this article published in the local paper here? Well, this is a blessing. Go Eagles!
It’s been over 55 years since I laced up and played for the Eagles but when I watched the video of the escort to I-81 I had tears in my eyes. An 74 year old man brought back to great memories! Thank you girls!
Frank Rowe ‘68