Seton freshman Mary Pennefather continues family tradition of producing prolific scorers

Each day as a Seton seventh-grader, Mary Pennefather had two lunch periods. One she used to actually eat lunch. The other she used to perfect her outside shot.

Mary had the extra time since she wasn’t taking a full load of classes yet. So under the watchful eye of her father Dick who as Seton’s head girls basketball coach was always on a quest to improve a player’s range and accuracy from the perimeter, Mary fired one ball after another at the basket for 30 minutes.

Her goal: developing a rhythm modeled on Stephen Curry’s pregame routine of hitting so many 3-pointers from different spots until he reached a certain total.

It worked. Mary tightened up her stroke. One time she hit 23 3-pointers in a row. Another 25.

She became so accustomed to the drills that she knew her father’s instructional phrases by heart before Dick even said them. More leg. Find the center line. Flat as a pancake, which meant more arc on her shot.

Eventually, the get-togethers stopped. Once her schedule began filling up, Mary had less time to shoot in the gym. But those repetitive exercises still laid an important foundation that puts Mary in a unique position.

If she continues on her current trajectory, Mary will have scored over 2,000 points in six varsity seasons by the time she graduates in 2023. With three years of eligibility left, she’s almost halfway there with a total of 994 points going into seventh-seeded Seton’s Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association Division II state tournament first-round game Tuesday against 10th seeded Atlantic Shores.

In one way, her prolific scoring is no surprise. Mary comes from a long line of prolific scorers, including her aunt Therese, who was the first female Seton basketball player to crack the 2,000-point plateau before going on to play at Villanova.

But family history aside, Mary’s objective isn’t to top her aunt as the program’s all-time leading scorer. Her objective is to stay in the present. If it results in a flurry of points or a school record, so be it. But otherwise it is about the moment and nothing more.

“I like going out and competing,” Mary said.

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Mary has drawn attention since she first officially joined Seton’s varsity as an eighth grader and averaged 12 points a game for the state semifinalists.

But as good as she was at such an early age, Dick and his wife Deirdre did not want to rush Mary. That’s why they decided to reclassify her, making Mary only the second Seton girls basketball player to do so in Dick’s 33 years of coaching at the Manassas-based private Catholic school of around 350 students. Therese was the first.

Dick saw the move as a win-win on all fronts.

Age was part of the thought process to reclassify Mary. After skipping sixth grade, she entered Seton as a young 12-year-old seventh grader (her birthday is in August). Academics were another reason as she adjusted to the workload (she is a straight A student at Seton). And part of it was for basketball. Under VISAA rules, athletes cannot compete on varsity teams until the eighth grade.

Dick thought an extra year at the same grade level would benefit Mary so she wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by competing against older and more experienced players. The move also benefited the team in need of a capable point guard who understood how to run Dick’s offense. The 5-foot-8 Mary played shooting guard her first eighth grade year, but switched over to point the following season after Lexi Chipps graduated.

Once Seton approved her reclassification as a repeat eighth grader, Mary now entered rare air: while most reclassified students play five varsity seasons, she will get the chance to play six since she also meets the VISAA age requirement in which a “student shall not have reached the age of 19 on or before the first day of August of the school year in which he or she wishes to compete.” Mary will be 18 when she graduates from Seton.

“The thinking was not to limit her,” Dick said. “It was better to have her come up with us … and not crush her confidence.”

Mary loves to push herself. Besides being a two-time all-conference basketball player, she earned first-team all-DAC honors last fall in tennis. She also plays soccer in the spring and is an all-conference swimmer. The key is staying healthy, especially in the winter when she participates in swimming and basketball. The demands take a physical toll. But she enjoys the competition too much to take too much of a break.

“We emphasize developing the whole person,” Dick said. “We’re not into one sport. She happens to be an excellent athlete.”

Still, basketball has the biggest pull. Mary loves it the best because of the team concept. The family tradition factors in as well.

Dick was a co-captain on Rick Pitino’s first Providence team. Mary's aunt, Shelly, is Villanova’s all-time leading men’s and women’s scorer with 2,408 points and as a senior won the Wade Trophy as the top women's basketball player in the nation.

Mary’s older sister Jane finished with 1,318 points in five seasons at Seton before graduating in 2017. She plays at Benedictine College in Kansas.

And of course Therese, who like Mary and Jane played point guard for the Conquistadors. The school has no record of exactly how many points Therese totaled at Seton nor was anyone sure, including Therese, how many varsity seasons she played there.

The best estimates regarding her career point totals come from two sources: Her Villanova media guide bio said she tallied 2,250 points and a Washington Post newspaper article from January 1997 said she topped the 2,000-point mark her senior season in a game against Shenandoah Valley Christian Academy. She needed 23 points coming into that game to reach 2,000 and finished with 25.

With private schools under no restrictions on how many regular-season games they are allowed to play and with Mary still three seasons away from graduation, another 2,000-point scorer in the family seems realistic. Besides Therese, Seton has produced other standout players over the years. But Mary is in position to finish as the best.

“She has the potential,” Dick said. “She is the whole package. The 3-point basket is so much more important now.”

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The Davidson University assistant men’s basketball coach came to Warrenton Jan. 23 to see Highland’s Angelo Brizzi.

But before the boys game, the coach got a chance to watch Mary when the Highland girls hosted Seton. What he saw impressed him. In a matchup of two of the top VISAA Division II teams, Mary delivered her best performance of the season. She finished with 29 points and totaled six 3-pointers. But what stood out to the Davidson coach was how Mary scored her points and when.

She hit four 3-pointers in the second half, including one by stepping back and converting with five seconds remaining to send the game into overtime. In the extra period, she hit two more as Seton won 52-49.

Afterward, the Davidson coach caught up with Dick and asked more about Mary. As they talked, the coach said he was a graduate assistant when Curry played for the Wildcats. Mary perked up after hearing that from her dad and the conversation reminded both of them why those extra sessions in seventh grade were so important.

“I know the players think I’m a little nutty working on their shooting stroke, but if you look at the game today, it’s all about the 3,” Dick said.

Like the Highland game showed, Mary, who averages 14.4 points and 2.5 3-pointers a game (tops among local girls), has the capability of scoring bunches of points in a matter of minutes. And once she’s in a zone, she’s tough to defend.

“She has this confidence that doesn’t waver,” Dick said.