By: Benjamin Goldstein
(photo credit Jacob Gladstone)
FAIRLESS HILLS — Halfway through the second quarter, Sofia Vitucci of Pennsbury High School had eleven points in a huge game against the Council Rock South Golden Hawkes Thursday night. The Golden Hawkes are possibly the second-best team in the SOL Patriot Division, right up there with the Falcons.
Two points away from 1,000 in her career, Vitucci stripped the ball out of the CR South’s hands, drove down the floor, took it herself to the basket, laid it up and in for the milestone bucket, took a few seconds to celebrate, and got right back on defense. Following came a quick pause from the game, where she was embraced by her teammates, coaches, and family at the Falcons Nest.
However, Vitucci was not focused on the milestone, but more so a win.
“I wanted to win, honestly. That was the first thought in my head,” Vitucci said after the 53-27 win over the Golden Hawkes Thursday night. “If this was gonna happen, it was gonna happen. But, I’m just happy we came out with a win, and it’s kind of a bonus to come out with the 1,000th [point], too.”
Vitucci is the seventh girl to score 1,000 points at Pennsbury.
“It’s certainly a very special and unique achievement,” Falcons head coach Frank Sciolla said prior to Thursday night’s game.
The 28-year head coach who coached Pennsbury boys, won a state title coaching Conwell Egan boys, and Pennsbury girls since 2016. He also currently sits at 497 career victories, three away from 500.
Vitucci can score in multiple ways. She is near automatic from deep and can take it all the way to the basket for a tough lay-up. However, most of her points come in a way that Sciolla described as “old-school”
“She defies analytics. In our basketball game today, we basically take two shots, a three or a layup. Sof has scored the lion’s share of her points from the mid-range. She loves to get to spots. She’s bouncy. She shoots that pull-up jumper really well. She’s able to be creative in how she finishes. So she has a unique 1,000 points for today’s players, because you rarely will see her go all the way to the rim and lay it up. She almost always gets into that eight-ten-twelve foot area and is very dangerous.”
Vitucci is the eleventh player to score 1,000 points under Sciolla. One most notable is Lavoy Allen who graduated from Pennsbury in 2007, attended Temple for basketball, and was drafted 50th overall by the Philadelphia 76ers in 2011.
Vitucci has always been a scorer and played with a lot of elite Pennsbury alumni.
“When she came in as a freshman, she got on the court, and we knew she was the scorer,” Sciolla said. “She gave us some punch off the bench, she was playing behind the really good guard in Bella Arturi, who was a great player for us who plays at Kutztown now, and she was playing behind Nicole Pompelli, who was a really good guard, and she was playing behind Ava Sciolla, who was a really good guard. And so she was able to learn from them.
Ava Sciolla, the last Pennsbury girl to score 1,000 points in 2021 in an empty gym due to COVID-19 protocol, was in attendance Thursday night because, as she said, “I promised Sof I’d be here for her 1,000th.” Ava committed to Maryland for basketball, and then later transferred to Columbia.
The Pennsbury coaching staff was still looking for Vitucci to make a leap, and she did that in her sophomore season to become the star she is today.
“In her tenth-grade year, she took a major step up, and she became a key player for us down the stretch… Last year, we had to play in a fashion of which I had never done before. It was, we were really reliant on her. And teams defended her in a way that I’d never seen. There were times when teams tripled teamed her. And at her size [5-foot-5], that was obviously awkward, and she had to kind of learn to navigate that. And she did. This year, we don’t need her to score like we did last year. We have more weapons. We are more capable…
“Every year [the coaches] have asked [Vitucci] to get better at something. Every year it has been you’ve gotta get better at this, better at that, and she has done that. She’s come back with something new in her bag.”
This does not come by accident. Vitucci has put so many hours of dedication into the game of basketball.
For a 7:00 game, she gets to the gym at 3:30, when the team takes a water break, she refuses so she can keep shooting, she refuses to leave the gym when practice is over, when there is no practice she goes to the gym and shoots and works out, and after a bad game, she goes home shoots some more. Vitucci did not reach 1,000 points by luck. She has sacrificed her social life, and the relationships that people have with each other, and has carved a massive chunk out of her life for basketball.
“She’s been coached hard,” Sciolla said. “We were really on her her first couple of years, to get her to be better, improve her court vision and keep her head up. And she takes the coaching, as well, and now she has a really high basketball I.Q.”
(photo credit Jacob Gladstone)
Vitucci’s whole family was in attendance Thursday night, and when she scored her 1,000th point, they and the crowd at Pennsbury High School roared. Some members of the family held up massive signs reading “1,000,” or “#21 is my cousin.” After receiving the ball she reached the milestone with, she ran right to her family, embracing the moment with them.
“I have a great support system,” Vitucci said Thursday. “My parents, my siblings, it’s all amazing. I have really big support from my grandpa, my aunts, my friends, my teammates, coaches, everyone.”
Vitucci, a sophomore at the time, saw Ava Sciolla score her 1,000th point and said to herself, “That’s something I want to accomplish.” She fulfilled her dream Thursday night.
“Scoring 1,000 is amazing. It kind of came when it came, kinda happened.”
She is very humble and is not full of herself. After asking her multiple questions the past year, I have never once heard her praise herself.
“People don’t understand the thousands of hours she’s spent in the dark with no one watching,” Sciolla said. “Sof has never posted a workout video, she’s never had a make-believe mixtape guy post something of her, but she is working out non-stop.”
This humbleness helps with her new role in her senior season, being a leader.
“Sof is very big into preparation,” Sciolla said. “She goes over our scouts really well. We give out these big packets for every game, and there’s a lot of stuff the girls have to be ready for. And she is prepared. By doing that, she demands that her teammates are prepared, too.
She’s really good in huddles. She’ll come over to the huddle, and she’s good in terms of helping people out with where they need to be. She’ll take over in the halftime locker room. Before [the coaches] get in there we hear Sof. So she leads by example, but also vocally.”
So, what is next?
“I think we all know the next goal,” Vitucci said. “We’re just gonna have to get it.”
After that, however, comes the college game, which wildly differs from high school. However, Vitucci is still looking for the right fit for her is.
When asked how she would adapt to the college game, Sciolla kept his answer short and sweet; “She’ll be fine.
“She can play fast, she can play slow, and she can score. She can score from the three-point line, in the middle, and at the basket. Being a three-level scorer makes her unique. If you can score [in high school] because you’re creative and you can shoot, you will score at the next level.”
