A pair of aces: Orlagh Gormley, Daithi Quinn have revitalized North Quincy High basketball

They burst onto the scene last winter as wise-beyond-their-years freshmen. Now we are happy to report that Orlagh Gormley and Daithi Quinn have proven to be much more than one-hit wonders.

After breakthrough campaigns in their varsity debuts, the two North Quincy High basketball stars have spent the first two months of the 2021-22 season breaking down Patriot League defenses all over again.

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Gormley, who averaged a league-high 20.4 points per game last season for the NQ girls, has bumped that number up to an absurd 26.5 ppg.

Sophomore jinx?

"Yeah, I heard about that," Gormley said with a laugh. "No."

Quinn, who averaged 15.3 points and 4.8 rebounds for the boys team in 2020-21, is at 19.8 and 6.3 for the Raiders, who are off to a 5-3 start.

"In the 17 years I've been coaching at North I've never had a kid make a splash or an immediate impact like he did last year," NQ boys coach Kevin Barrett said. "Now he just continues to improve upon what he did last year. ... His trajectory just continues to (go up). He's a special kid to be around."

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Ditto for Gormley, a 5-6 point guard who's already had games of 48 points (vs. Marshfield) and 13 steals (vs. Hanover) this winter. An unselfish star who seems more excited about her teammates' successes than her own, she's also averaging 8 rebounds, 6 assists and 5 steals per game as NQ has raced out to an 8-0 start.

"She's a hard payer (to defend), always hard-working," said Quinn, a 6-3 forward. "Unstoppable, I guess."

NQ girls coach Matt Ramponi found that out the first day of tryouts. New to the program after being a late sub for the sidelined Paul Bregoli, Ramponi had heard of Gormley's freshman exploits, but he was still caught -- pardon the pun -- off guard.

"I got asked literally a few days before (the season started) if I would be willing to come back to coach," Ramponi recalled. "The very first day I said, 'Wow! She's definitely a lot better than I anticipated.'"

Although the boys and girls usually play on the same day in different gyms, Barrett has tried to keep an eye on both of the rising stars. He doesn't have to look far to gauge Quinn's progress, of course, but he also tries to check the girls' game film to keep tabs on Gormley, too.

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"I teach elementary phys ed in Quincy, so I had them both at Bernazzani Elementary School," Barrett said. "Regardless of the activity that we did, those two -- though not in the same class -- were standouts. So I knew at an early age that they'd be gifted, either on a court or a field, at some point. It's cool that I've been able to see them develop as young kids into the blossoming stars that they are right now."

Gormley and Quinn have a lot in common besides the way in which they have taken over their respective programs. In fact, Gormley notes that they've been friends for a while and have known each other since they were 5 years old.

Here's a closer look at how close they are:

They're both the offspring of Irish immigrants.

Basketball and Ireland aren't exactly first cousins, but this new generation has found a home on the hardwood, even through Quinn -- his first name is pronounced DAH-hee -- wasn't too keen on the sport at an early age.

"One time my sister (Sorcha, now a freshman at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston) said, 'You should try it out,'" Quinn said, recalling when basketball first came onto his radar screen. "I was like, 'Nah, I don't really want to play.' But I ended up playing anyway. And my mom's always loved Kobe (Bryant) and the Lakers; she watched them when she was growing up."

Gormley, too, was influenced by older siblings.

"My brother (Eoin) played when he was wicked young, and my sister (Aoibhe -- pronounced like Ava -- now a junior guard at Thayer Academy) did, too, so I just followed along," Gormley said. "My sister and I play alike, so I try to mimic my game after hers."

They're both one-sport specialists.

Although Quinn's frame would make him an appealing option for the school's football coaches, and even though Gormley's tremendous footwork might translate into stardom on the soccer, field hockey or lacrosse fields, both are just fine with basketball, thanks.

Gormley does briefly detour to Gaelic football in the summer, playing mostly at the Irish Cultural Center in Canton. But she opts for club basketball with the MCW Starz program instead of suiting up for another NQ team in the fall or spring. "It's a lot in the summer with all the traveling," she says of her club schedule, which has taken her to Orlando, Chicago and Kentucky in recent years, "but I never get tired of it."

Same goes for Quinn, who suits up for ASA Select and figures that he logs about 100 games a year. Quinn said he started playing club in sixth grade and found "right away" that he had an aptitude for it. "Our team got wicked good," he said, "and it just went from there."

They're both captains.

That's not the usual order of business on the boys' side, where Barrett says Quinn is the first NQ sophomore to earn that honor under his watch. Quinn is a tri-captain with senior point guard Nikko Mortel and senior center Colm Geary.

"The best part of his game and the best part of him -- and it speaks volumes about who he is -- is the ability to make everybody around him better," Barrett said. "And because of that he has the utmost respect from his teammates. Being voted captain as a sophomore shows the way his teammates feel about him. We do a team vote and he was an unanimous vote. That goes back to his work ethic."

Gormley, too, was voted captain by her peers, who also selected fellow sophomore Ava Bryan and junior Bridget Capone.

"I didn't know I was going to be a captain until our team voted," Gormley said. "It feels good." Asked about the responsibilities that come with that, she said, "Lead the team, be vocal, help out the younger kids. Even on the bench making sure they're engaged and making sure I lift up my teammates if they miss a shot."

The offense runs through them.

No surprise here. With an asset like that, you want to make sure they're involved in every trip down the court.

"Every possession we're looking to get the ball in his hands," Barrett said of Quinn, who's averaging 3.5 assists and 3.3 steals per game. "He's so versatile; he can score with his back to the basket on the block, and he's just as dangerous face up from 25 feet where he's able to shoot the ball with great range and also get the ball to the rim by penetrating.

"This year we've had him play every position. Against Weymouth we got the ball in his hands and he was our point guard with Nikko Mortel out. And then (other times) we've had him play more of a role as a center where we're looking to pound it inside to him and get him shots on the block. And we can put him on the wing also. He's as versatile a kid as I've ever had."

It's the same story on the girls' side.

"Everything runs through her, without a doubt," Ramponi said of Gormley. "We have a few set offenses, but my mentality is that a lot of basketball points, especially in the MIAA, are scored off defensive transition. So what we try to do is pressure the ball defensively, all of us, and when we get that ball we get it to Orlagh and we're off and running."

When Gormley has the ball in her hands, Ramponi raves about her approach, noting, "She doesn't let up. There's no putting the brakes on -- she's full gas, trying to attack, attack, attack."

The 48-point outburst against Marshfield, in an 89-70 win on Dec. 22, was a good example of that.

"I just attacked the basket the whole time," Gormley said. "They didn't make me change anything, so I just kept going the whole game."

"That was crazy," Bryan said. "Toward the end of the game we tried to draw up a play to get her to 50."

They both have big plans.

Quinn says his dream school for college basketball would be Syracuse. Gormley doesn't have a favorite program, but she, too, wants to play at the next level. Of course, that's two-plus years down the road. Right now they'll settle for just getting their respective teams into the MIAA playoffs.

The girls have just about clinched a berth, which would be NQ's first since 2014, ending a seven-year drought that includes the 2020-21 campaign in which there was no MIAA tournament.

With Bryan, who is averaging 13 points and 8 rebounds per game, becoming a legitimate second scoring option, and sophomore center Autumn O'Campus flirting with a double-double on many nights, the Raiders would appear to be a proverbial tough out come playoff time.

"It feels really good," Gormley said of being a contender. "We're off to a great start, but we have to keep on going because anything can happen."

The boys lost three seniors starters -- Steve Dalla, Tyler Le and Agu Ugwu -- from last year's team that finished 9-5 and made it to the semifinals of the Patriot Cup. (Speaking of something that actually was a one-hit wonder.) But NQ has reinvented itself with a starting lineup that features Mortel, a 6-foot senior, and 5-10 junior Nate Caldwell in the backcourt and Quinn paired with 6-2 junior Zach Taylor and the 6-3 Geary up front.

"It's been tough (replacing last year's starters) because they were the main people," Quinn said, "but we've got some (other) people back."

"Our mindset is that every game we go into we're expecting to win it," Barrett said. "Any time we lose we're disappointed. Going forward that's the bar that we've set for ourselves."

A last-second loss to Plymouth South on Jan. 12 was a downer, but the Raiders have rebounded with back-to-back wins. As with the girls, having a star sophomore on your side opens up a world of possibilities come playoff time.

"It's still early on," Geary said. "I feel like it's going to shake out just how we want it to."

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Fans can see Gormley and Quinn in the same gym on the same day when North Quincy hosts city rival Quincy on Friday in a girls/boys doubleheader at 5/7 p.m.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: No sophomore slumps for North Quincy basketball stars Gormley, Quinn