PDS junior nets 1,000th point
By: Bob Nuse
Drew Godwin doesn’t usually get nervous on the basketball court. But when the Princeton Day School junior stepped to the foul line for a pair of shots with 2:28 left in the third quarter on Friday night, he certainly felt something.
"I felt it when I was on the free throw line," said Godwin, who needed to sink one of those two fouls shots to reach 1,000 points for his PDS career. "I felt the pressure as soon as I got to the line. That was the one time in all the years I’ve been playing that I really felt the pressure. Even when the game is tied up and it is coming down to the end, I didn’t feel that same kind of pressure."
After missing the first shot, Godwin sank the second to become the 17th member of the Panthers’ 1,000-point club. He is the first to reach the milestone since Christina Marshall-Parr in 2001.
Godwin is one of the rare players to reach the century mark as a junior. So he’ll have one more season left to try to add to his impressive scoring total.
"Drew is a very talented kid, that’s not a secret," said PDS coach Ahmed El-Nokali, who scored 1,508 during his high school career in Pittsburgh. "I think every team that we play against knows that Drew is very talented. But to score 1,000 points before your senior year is very special. I’m glad he got a chance to do it this season, just to get it out of the way so he doesn’t think about it next season."
The only drawback for Godwin on Friday was that the Panthers lost, 77-63, to Ewing in a Mercer County Tournament consolation game. The loss left the Panthers with a final record of 7-18, having lost nine of their last 10 games.
"I was trying not to think about it," Godwin said. "It felt good to get it, but I wish we could have won the game. I planned on working for it my senior year, I never thought junior year was possible. But I worked hard in the off-season to get ready."
Godwin, like most of his teammates, will be back next year hoping to rebound from a disappointing season. El-Nokali hopes the whole team learns from the events of this season.
"If anything, speaking for the whole team, this should help motivate our younger guys," El-Nokali said. "If we don’t want to experience moments we felt this whole season, losing, then they’re going to have to put the effort in during the off-season. I think there is always a lesson to be learned, and the lesson is that you have a chance to do something about it. There is always a silver lining with everything."
Godwin plans to put in that effort, working as hard as he can from now until the start of next season to get himself ready for a big final year.
"This off-season is the most important of my life," said Godwin, who scored a team-high 24 points on Friday and now has 1,006 for his career. "This is where I’m going to have to do it to make it into college. I think we can come back strong next year. We have some good younger players. Jordan (Mickens) will have a chance to do it. He’s a great player with a lot of potential. We have a lot of good young players."
"I guess you could say this was a rebuilding year, but I don’t really want to call it that because that’s unfair to the seniors. It was a different team and the last couple of weeks we really started to come together. Hopefully that will carry over to next year."
If the younger players progress as Godwin has, El-Nokali thinks the Panthers have a chance to rebound.
"He’s come a long way," El-Nokali said of Godwin. "He didn’t have a good sense of the game when I first got here. He was talented, but he was always in a shoot-first mentality. And it wasn’t because he was selfish, but it was the only way he’s ever known how to play. Now we put a lot on this kid and he’s come through."
And he came through on Friday, notching that 1,000th point during a rare case of nervousness on the court.
"I was just trying to play the game and if it came, it came," Godwin said. "It feels great, but I just wish we could have won the game."