By PAUL GOTHAM
If Webster Schroder girls’ basketball is to repeat as sectional and state champions, the Warriors will have to do so without senior leader Mariah Watkins.
Watkins will miss the 2023-24 High School Basketball season due to an ACL injury, the team announced.
“We’re so bummed about it,” said Schroeder head coach Codi Battaglia-Mrozek. “It stinks for any kid but especially her. It’s your senior year and coming off the season she had and we had. It stinks.”
A First Team All-State performer and Monroe County Division I Player of the Year a season ago when she averaged 24.4 points, 9.6 rebounds, 3.6 steals and 3.2 assists per game, Watkins set single-season program records with 627 total points and 302 total rebounds. She established the Warriors single-game scoring mark at 42 – a feat she accomplished on two separate occasions. She also holds program marks for career rebounds (778) and career steals (239).
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Her 1,635 points is the most points scored by a Webster Central School District student-athlete male or female.
“We’re just devastated for her,” the third-year head coach said. “These girls have grown up together. Obviously, winning a state championship last year was a historical season. We built a sisterhood. These girls are really close. They took this news of Mariah hard not just because we’re not going to have her on the court, but because she’s a phenomenal person and young lady. She’s their best friend.”
During the 2023 Section V Class AA championship game, Watkins delivered 10 of her 15 points in the fourth quarter as the Warriors claimed the program’s first sectional title since 1976 with a 58-46 win over Penfield.
One week later in the NYS Far West Regionals, she finished with a game-high 32 points in a 64-57 win over Section VI champion, Lancaster. She followed that with a game-high 21 points to go with 11 rebounds in a 49-39 victory over Baldwin (VII) in the NYS AA semifinal. Watkins capped the season with an 18-point, 12-rebound performance in the NYS championship game as Schroder defeated White Plains (I), 49-41.
“It’s disappointing, but we know that she’s overcome adversity in her life and she’s definitely going to tackle this head on,” Battaglia-Mrozek said of the injury. “If there’s any kid that could probably cut rehab in half, it’s her. We know she’ll back stronger probably sooner than a usual athlete would.”
Watkins is committed to continue her academic and athletic careers at Drexel University.
Schroeder did not have a senior in the lineup last season.
Younger sister, Bria Watkins (14 points per game) returns to the Warriors’ starting lineup along with Addison Morgan, Ava Gallup and Sarah Ferruzza. Schroeder opens its season on the road against Webster Thomas. A 7:15 PM tip-off is scheduled, Friday night.
The news comes after Greece Athena standout, Wrianna Hudson missed more than half of the recent high school girls’ soccer season because of a surgery on her left ankle. Hudson, also a First Team All-State performer as a junior, is committed to play at Florida State University.
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