Jacqueline Schoninger isn’t into showing signs of weakness.
But the Fieldston senior came into Saturday’s game at the Coaches vs. Cancer Girls Basketball Classic having difficulty walking the night before because of a nagging hip injury dating back to last season. She nearly fell taking a layup during warmups and getting knocked hard to the floor on three 3-pointers early certainly didn’t help. The limping and wincing was noticeable.
“I didn’t want to complain about it or they would have sat me, but it really hurt,” the Brown-bound guard said.
So did the host Eagles’ 46-40 loss to Rye Country Day Sunday. Fieldston struggles to score in the third quarter and the Wildcats’ Yale-bound forward Alexandra Osborne-Jones (22 points, 10 rebounds) came alive with Kalijah Terilli on the bench. But Schoninger did have something to be happy about. She had 23 points, including four 3-pointers, and scored the 1,000th point of her career.
“To see the smile on her face when it happened, that was good to see,” said Fieldston headman Rock Rosa, Schoninger’s longtime coach.
She reached the milestone by knocking down two free throws with 4:29 left in the fourth quarter to pull the Eagles within 35-28. Schoninger became just the second player in school history to record the mark. The game was stopped for a few minutes to celebrate and take pictures and she was given hand-made signs from her teammates.
“I wish they did it at the end,” Schoninger said. “I was like, ‘Rock can we do this later?’ It’s cool to say you did it when you are older. It’s not something where I was like, ‘This means I’m so good.’”
She was worried about bringing Fieldston back from a what was a 30-20 third-quarter deficit. Terilli was on the bench with foul trouble as Osborne-Jones scored seven points and the Eagles (9-8) just five as they struggled from the perimeter.
“When we lose Kalijah we lose the strength of our defense,” Rosa said. “Jones can go in and Jones can go out. She just makes it difficult for any defense.”
Chelsea Dale scored eight points for Fieldston, including a 3-pointer from the right corner, after a Terilli 3-point play, the helped cut the Rye (12-4) lead to 40-36 with 3:10 remaining in the game. But Dale left the game with a broken nose on the next offensive possession and Stephanie Binder (15 points) ended the Eagles’ comeback hopes with a 3-pointer from the right corner and then a driving layup with 1:47 left in the game to make it 45-36.
Schoninger’s performance and milestone was not lost on her teammates, though.
“It makes the rest of us want to work harder to help her out,” Terilli said. “We need her and that’s why she works through it.”