STORY & PHOTOS BY GLENN NELSON
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RADNOR, Pa. - Arguably the decade's most dominant club team, certainly in AAU competition, is no more.
What would have been Fencor's 18u team, the well-known nucleus of which has won three AAU National titles during the past five years, has disbanded, the victim of changing lives and agendas.
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10u, 2000: Third
11u, 2001: Fifth
12u, 2002: First
13u, 2003: Second
14u, 2004: First
15u, 2005: First
16u, 2006: Second
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Ending long-running speculation, Caroline Doty, a Connecticut commit, left Fencor for the Philly Belles, as did Chelsea Shine, a 6-foot-3 forward who recently scored her 1,000th career point for Conestoga High School in Berwyn, Pa.
Veronica Algeo, who coached Fencor to two national titles and a runners-up finish during her three-year tenure, just accepted what she termed as a "life-changing" job offer that would prevent her from returning to the Pennsylvania-based club team.
Meanwhile, Elena DelleDonne of Ursuline Academy in Wilmington, Del., virtually the consensus No. 1 player in the 2008 class, likely will not play club ball this spring and summer to focus on USA Basketball preparations for the 2007 FIBA U19 World Championship in Bratislava, Slovakia. She said she likely will make her college commitment after the USA Basketball trials in May. Her present list of schools includes Connecticut, Duke, Maryland, Tennessee, Villanova and Middle Tennessee, where her brother, Gene, plays football.
"We used to be like nine sisters," DelleDonne said of the Fencor team. "We still are, but this year a lot of girls graduated and a lot went to do what is best for them. Without Veronica, without those girls, Fencor isn't really Fencor."
Doty, of Germantown Academy in Fort Washington, Pa., agreed.
Caroline Doty |
"It wouldn't have been the same to go back to Fencor and have half our team there," said the No. 12 overall prospect in 2008, per HoopGurlz.com. "I appreciate everything Veronica has done. She's a great person, a great coach. But a lot of my friends play for the Belles, and I thought about it a lot. I just thought this being my last year in AAU, it would be fun."
DelleDonne played for Fencor since she was 10. Doty joined the team when she was 11.
The team won its first AAU National title in the 12u division under coach Keith Webster. It won back-to-back titles under Algeo in the 14u and 15u divisions, the first year with Doty out with a fractured fibula suffered nine days before competition was to being in Monroe, La. The following year, DelleDonne scored 40 points in the championship game against Fairfax in Clarksville Tenn.
Fencor's three-peat bid was thwarted by an ankle injury that kept DelleDonne out of last summer's tournament. Still, they finished second, losing to the Orlando Comets in the championship game.
"I've never played for any other (club) team than Fencor," Doty said. "I think it will be a positive change."
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Glenn Nelson is the publisher of HoopGurlz.com and the edito r-in-chief of Scout Media (www.Scout.com), an online sports network and magazine-publishing company and subsidiary of Fox Interactive Media. Glenn also founded and coached
the Dragons and Northwest HoopGurlz select girl's basketball teams. He previously was a longtime, national-award-winning basketball columnist and writer for The Seattle
Times. His work also has appeared in several national magazines and books. He is co-author of "Rising Stars: The Ten Best Players in the NBA" (Rosen Publishing, 2002). He
can be reached at hoopgurlz@comcast.net.
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