The Potomac Highlands Dispatch - the online newspaper

Local seniors take part in Roundball Classic showcase
* Fratz, Nightengale, Kisselovich, Hilliard and Nelson take part in senior hoops extravaganza

By Kevin Spradlin
PhDispatch.com
HAGERSTOWN, March 19 -- The atmosphere was a bit different for Northern Garrett basketball player Kaitlynn Fratz and Mountain Ridge's Madi Nightengale.

Typically, Fratz was in the starting lineup for the American All-Stars on Saturday in the annual Roundball Classic on Saturday at Hagerstown Community College. Nightengale was atypically on the bench at the start of the game.

For both players, the limited playing time was quite unusual.

"That was different," Fratz agreed after her team fell 73-64 to the National All-Stars 73-64 in the first of five games intended to simultaneously showcase senior talent among student-athletes from Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.

"I'm always in the game," Fratz said.

The Girls Elite game, in which both Fratz and Nightengale played, featured primarily area seniors who had not yet committed to a college. Both Fratz and Nightengale, however, already know where they'll be attending this fall.

Fratz, who scored more than 2,100 points in her four-year varsity career to finish as the all-time leading scorer - male or female - in Garrett County history, has accepted an athletic scholarship to play ball for and study at University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.

Nightengale, who became the first Miner in the school's brief four-year history to reach the 1,000-point career milestone, plans to enroll at Allegany College of Maryland and play basketball, at least during her freshman year, for the Trojans. She plans to study nursing.

On Saturday just after Nightengale spurred the American All-Stars toward a comeback that fell just shy, the sophomore-laden Trojans finished sixth among 16 teams in the NJCAA Division II National Tournament in Peoria, Illinois.

Fratz said she felt playing two 20-minute halves - as opposed to the four, eight-minute quarters high school players are used to - was "more tiring" but noted the coach's four-minute lineup rotations helped with the transition to an environment she'll see on a daily basis in Johnstown.

Both Fratz and Nightengale struggled from the floor, at least at first. Fratz made only one of her first six field goal attempts and finished 2-for-10 (20 percent) from the field.

Nightengale, though, helped rally the American All-Stars back from a second-half deficit that reached 18 points. While already having two points from the free throw line, she missed her first four field goal attempts.

But when she made her first, it counted. The 3-pointer helped pull the American All-Stars within 67-58. Her second basketball cut the deficit to 67-62, but the American All-Stars couldn't rein in the National All-Stars.

In the second game, Southern Garrett's senior duo of Joey Kisselovich and Calvin Hilliard played in the Four State Challenge. Details of that game are not yet available. Also in that game was Hampshire's Jordan Nelson.