Garvin named Daily Item Girls Baskerball Player of the Year

May 15—Imagine traveling back in time about five years and explaining to those in and around the Northumberland Christian girls basketball program exactly what they have in Emily Garvin.

Not that they'd need much convincing that their athletic dynamo had all-state potential or would finish among the Warriors' top all-time scorers. They've already seen flashes of that ability in the unassuming middle schooler.

No, you've brought a list of Garvin's high school accomplishments to recite — and this may take a minute.

Three-time district champion.

A 2,000-point scorer.

The state's Class A player of the year.

State champion.

Guaranteed at some point the listener will cut you off and say, "Now you're just making up stuff."

It's like that with Garvin, though, the Daily Item Player of the Year whose fairytale career was capped by a senior season she called "the best ending I could ask for."

Here is a girl who led Northumberland Christian's talent-laden teams in points, rebounds, steals and assists in each of her four high school seasons.

She's a 5-foot-6 point guard/power forward who finished 11 rebounds shy of 1,000 in her career.

She once beat the buzzer with a 3-pointer and caught the ball when it dropped through the net. Honest.

"I've never seen a player like her — ever," said Dan Severn, the Warriors' coach for five seasons before trading places with former assistant Jeff Ulmer last year. "Her motor is always going; she has great instincts; she's a competitor. There's a lot of stuff she does that we didn't coach. It's just she knows what to do.

"I've told her this multiple times: There are not many players who make everybody else on the team better. That is the one distinction about Emily Garvin. Every time she steps on the court, the entire team is better."

Makes everybody better, he says? If you look at Garvin's statistics from her senior season — 25.1 points, 10.1 rebounds, 5.8 steals, 5.3 assists — you'd wonder how anyone else touched the ball in a 32-minute game.

The truth is Garvin did most of her damage after taking the ball away from the opponent, not by keeping it away from her teammates. She routinely turned steals into three-point propositions, and her rebounding ability in traffic among players 6 inches taller is borderline legendary.

"I think the majority of my points do come that way," she said. "When I think back on games, I'm like, 'Yeah, I really don't take jump shots.' Most of my points are definitely off of layups or putbacks. I think that's just because I have a really aggressive nature. I want to win, and I want the ball."

You can watch a season's worth of games and not see girls drive to the basket for a layup, leap and brace for contact with the ball near their ear, and power the shot up and in as often as Garvin does in one night. It's a play she perfected growing up with the 6-2 Ulmer twins, Anna and Emma, because, as she noted, "at practice, if I don't do that then I'll just get stuffed every time."

It may, in fact, have won Northumberland Christian the Class A state championship.

If you don't think one play can have that kind of effect on a game, you're invited to watch the start of the second half in the Warriors' state semifinal against Williamsburg and the title game against Kennedy Catholic. With her team trailing by at least five in both instances, Garvin ripped away the ball from an opposing player and scored to spark the game-defining rally.

"Her biggest strength is her physical strength," Kennedy Catholic coach Justin Magestro said. "I think probably more than half of her points came from the foul line because she was strong enough to get to the basket."

Garvin's championship game performance (35 points, 12 rebounds, eight assists, six steals, 16-of-23 free throws) gave a statewide cable television audience an opportunity to witness what area fans enjoyed for years, particularly when Northumberland Christian began to compete in the PIAA postseason in 2019-20. The Warriors won three consecutive district crowns and went 8-1 in the state playoffs, with the COVID-19 pandemic halting their 2020 season ahead of the state quarterfinals.

"She's just a special, special player," said Jeff Ulmer. "I doubt I'll ever see another player like her — and we hear that from almost every coach we play against. She is the most unselfish player you'll ever see — that I've ever seen — and she works the hardest in practice. She's in the gym all the time. She's definitely a difference-maker in every game we play."

Garvin's next basketball home is Grove City College, about an hour north of Pittsburgh. The Christian-based education was most important in her choice, more than the 17-9 Wolverines just missing an ECAC Division III Tournament berth this past season. It's much the same as winning games with her friends meant more to her than three all-state honors or the Class A player of the year award.

She said it would be "super-cool" to see her name on the banner commemorating Northumberland Christian's 1,000-point scorers that hangs in the Bingaman Center. Beyond that, she won't be able to tell anyone who asks that she finished second in program history with 2,144 points in addition to her 989 rebounds, 616 steals and 514 assists.

That state championship, however? Won by the 10th smallest girls basketball school in the state? That she'll remember.

"Looking back on it, it seemed to fly by. While we were there, though, we were in every moment," Garvin said. "It's still hard to believe it because it went so fast. Sometimes I'll look at the pictures, and I'm like, 'Oh, my goodness! What?'

"It's still crazy to me."