On Feb. 7 at East Brunswick High School, Alyssa Bondi raced down court on a fast break and laid the ball in the basket.
The Bears’ fans stood up and roared. Bondi had just scored her 1,000th girls’ basketball point during her career at East Brunswick.
In high school basketball, normal protocol calls for the game to stop at this point. Then the player receives a 1,000 point banner and takes photos with coaches and family members.
Only Bondi didn’t want to disrupt the game. It was the last contest before the postseason, and the Bears needed it for seeding in the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament and in the NJSIAA Central Jersey, Group 4 sectional tournament.
Two weeks earlier, Bondi’s coach, Keith Lane, asked her how she wanted to handle this moment.
“She wanted to do the ceremony after the game,” Lane said. “She said, ‘It’s about the team.’”
East Brunswick won, 65-51, behind Bondi’s 24 points. Then after the game, she got the moment she deserved.
The lights stayed on and the crowd hung out, bopping balloons around like volleyballs. A lot of students brought signs about Bondi to the game, and the senior posed for pictures with them.
After a short while, Lane took the microphone and stepped to center court. The noise stopped.
“She’s in special company. Only about seven or eight girls have scored 1,000 points at this school,” Lane said. “She’s also selfless because she waited until the end of the game, instead of making the other team watch for 5-10 minutes.”
“Scoring 1,000 is a huge deal but I’d rather win than worry about stopping to take a few pics,” Bondi said.
Lane has been coaching basketball for 30 years. In working with teenagers each day, he has witnessed societal trends firsthand. The coach doesn’t see selflessness too much anymore, he said.
“It’s a dying character trait,” Lane added. “In the day of me me I, it’s good to see somebody thinking about us.”
Bondi led by example on the court, too. This winter, the guard played in all 27 games and scored 16.6 points per contest.
But despite her scoring load, Bondi didn’t conserve energy on defense. She averaged more than three rebounds and two steals per game as well.
Most importantly, Bondi sparked the Bears to an 18-9 record and quarterfinal runs in the GMC and state sectional tournaments. East Brunswick fell to state power Bishop George Ahr High School, 73-39, in the GMC quarters and to third-seeded Montgomery High School, 47-39, in the state sectional quarters.
It was a respectable showing for a hard working standout and team.
Now, Bondi will continue her career at Division 3 Misericordia University in Dallas, Pa. Lane expects the senior’s three point stroke to translate to the next level.
Bondi drilled 91 threes this year, an East Brunswick record. She also sank 218 treys in her career, shattering the old program mark of 192.
“I know they’ll expect her to be a shooter,” Lane said.
Bondi, however, did not choose the small, liberal arts college for its basketball team. She selected it for its five year physical therapy program.
The senior enjoyed working hard to condition her body during high school. She wants to help other athletes do the same.
Bondi also wants to help athletes recover from injuries. She has never suffered a major injury herself, but she has seen friends and teammates struggle with ailments.
“My goal is to work with those athletes so they can get back to doing what they love,” Bondi said.