by Tom Utescher

Just a few weeks after the conclusion of spring sports seasons for high school and college athletes, area hoopsters will soon begin competition in several summer basketball leagues.

Germantown Academy’s girls have been in the Gwynedd Mercy Academy High School summer league since it was started a few years ago, and now both Penn Charter and Springside Chestnut Hill Academy have signed on. With both schools now enjoying a stable coaching situation after a number of changes in previous years, the Quakers and Blue Devils will be able to get in some valuable off-season training and begin to develop chemistry well before formal practices begin late in the fall.

While a number of high school summer leagues have dissolved over the past five years or so, the recent start-up at Gwynedd is thriving. Solid teams from the Central Bucks districts, North Penn and Lansdale Catholic contribute to the quality of the competition. Other teams appear regularly from as far away as Boyertown and Perkiomen Valley.

The action at Gwynedd gets underway this Tuesday, and league runs until late July.

A college league which got its start at Chestnut Hill’s Water Tower Recreation Center many decades ago is back for another go. The Philadelphia/Suburban Women’s NCAA Summer League is now based at the AAU Renegades gym (Kelly Bolish) in Hatboro.

While regulations dictate that no more than two active players from a given Division I program can play on the same summer squad, the Division II’s and III’s can play together. Philadelphia University (DII) will have its entire ball club participating as usual, and that includes two former Mount St. Joseph Academy players, rising senior Kelsey Jones and incoming freshman Caitlyn Cunningham. In their summer guise, the Lady Rams will be known as Team Black.

A classmate of Cunningham’s and a fellow starter for the Mount last season, forward Sarah Wills, has signed on with Team Kelly Green, where she’ll join forces with a number of her future college teammates at Delaware Valley University.

A fellow member of the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference, Chestnut Hill College, has not entered a team, but an incoming junior transfer will play. Shooting guard Vicki Tumasz, who played for North Penn and started college ball at Shippensburg University, will represent CHC on Team Sky Blue. Also on this squad’s roster is recent Penn Charter grad Ayanna Matthews, who will attend Princeton University but was not recruited by the Tigers.

Matthews’ PC teammate, classmate and fellow guard, Hannah Fox, will also be in action in Hatboro. Penn Charter’s all-time leading scorer, Fox will play for Amherst College and this summer she’ll be a member of Team Pink along with a number of former Suburban One League players.

Two guards just out of Germantown Academy, Erin Lindahl and Kendall Grasela, are both on the Team Orange roster. Lindahl, the Inter-Ac League MVP last winter, is heading for Atlanta’s Emory University along with one of her summer teammates, Upper Dublin High’s Allison Chernow.

Grasela, a University of Pennsylvania recruit, played club ball for the Philadelphia Belles and recently learned that she was one of eight players from the Mid-Atlantic region to receive an AAU District Scholarship Award. The defining characteristics of recipients are outstanding leadership abilities, well-roundedness, great sportsmanship, strength of character, and academic prowess.

An earlier graduate of GA, guard Jaryn Garner (’12) will perform for Team Purple in the NCAA League. Garner originally signed with the University of Virginia, but has now transferred back home to St. Joseph’s University, where she’ll be a senior.