The Mid-Penn Conference has produced yet another Division I basketball player.
Greencastle-Antrim junior sharpshooter Jenay Faulkner, who helped the Blue Devils win the District 3 Class 3A championship last winter, and who joined the 1,000-point club earlier this season, has given a verbal commitment to accept an athletic scholarship offer and continue her career at Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
The Crusaders compete in the Patriot League under coach Bill Gibbons.
Faulkner also considered Davidson, Kent State, Northeastern and West Point; she visited Holy Cross, West Point and Northeastern last summer, and after visiting Holy Cross again last week, she was sold.
“The main reason was the team,” Faulkner said. “When I took a visit I got to spend a lot of time with them, and that’s who I’ll be spending a lot of time with when I’m there. That was a big part of it, knowing that they’re all so cool and nice; I could see myself fitting in with them.”
There are five Pennsylvania natives on the Crusaders’ current roster, including another Mid-Penn product: Trinity grad Miranda Nixon is a freshman center for Holy Cross.
Other former PA players include Tricia Byrne (Scranton Prep), Shannon Druck (Susquehannock), Lisa Mifsud (Villa Maria, Erie) and Maggie Locke (Spring-Ford).
Faulkner is enjoying a fabulous season for G-A; heading into Monday night’s nonleague game against District 3 Class 2A heavyweight Delone Catholic, she’s averaging 21.5 points with a midstate-best 41 3-pointers.
In her breakout sophomore season last winter, Faulkner averaged 17.1 points, drilled an area-best 75 3-pointers, was an all-state selection and helped the Blue Devils win their first district crown.
Faulkner entered this week with 1,112 career points; she's just the fourth G-A girls' player to score 1,000 or more points, and if the Blue Devils can make deep postseason runs the next two seasons, she'll have a shot at reaching 2,000.
And now she knows where she’ll be heading in a couple of years.
“It’s a relief,” Faulkner said. “Now I don’t have to worry about what college I’m going to go to, and I can’t start figuring out what I want to do with my life.”
Faulkner said she originally was hoping to make her college decision by this coming summer. But after visiting Holy Cross and getting to know the Crusaders’ players and coaches, her mind was made up.
“I just knew,” she said. “That was it; I just knew.”
Other current Mid-Penn girls’ players who have committed to Division I programs include: Cumberland Valley's Morgan Baughman (Niagara), Harrisburg’s Tysha Brown (Providence), Middletown’s Ja’lynn Burton-Jones (Robert Morris), State College’s Kyla Irwin (UConn), Cumberland Valley’s Kelly Jekot (Villanova), Cumberland Valley’s Katie Jekot (St. Joe’s) and Central Dauphin’s Tori Lesko (Iona).
