(Our Shore Ortho Senior of the Month, sponsored by Shore Orthopaedic University Associates, highlights a senior student-athlete who exemplifies excellence both on and off the field. We consider things like athletic ability, academic achievement, leadership qualities and the athlete’s impact on the sports teams they play for and their school as a whole. Our Lady of Mercy Academy senior basketball star Madelynn Bernhardt is our choice for the month of February.)
By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
Four years ago, Brian Coyle was an assistant coach for the Our Lady of Mercy Academy girls basketball team. When he saw freshman Madelynn Bernhardt take the court for the first time, he knew she had the capability to do some special things during her Villagers career.
The Milmay resident fit right in with the varsity girls from the jump, and our Shore Ortho Senior of the Month for February certainly made her presence felt the past four years in Newfield. She finished her career as the school’s all-time leading scorer with 1,254 points and helped lead OLMA to a 23-win season that saw the Villagers tie Egg Harbor Township for the Cape-Atlantic League National Conference title, make it to the CAL Tournament quarterfinals and the sectional semis.
It’s because of seniors like Bernhardt and Savannah Prescott that the Villagers are now talked about as one of the better teams in the CAL, which wasn’t the case two years ago when OLMA posted a sub-.500 record and got bounced in the first round of the state playoffs.
“The leadership of she and Savannah has been outstanding. Savannah is a quiet leader and Madelynn has always been a big part of our success. She’s been such a positive force. She’s a happy, smiling kid and her leadership shows up every day. I always say, ‘when one of your best players is one of your hardest workers, your job is a lot easier.’ She sets the tone, both vocally and in the way she practices and plays,” Coyle said. “The other girls see what she does and they learn by what they see. When you correct Madelynn, there’s never an eye roll. She’s one of the easiest kids you’ll ever want to coach. She’s taken a more vocal part in things and she’ll say, ‘why don’t we do this?’ Or, ‘girls, watch out for that.’ When you have somebody doing things like that you’re going to have a lot of success. She’s a big reason why our program has continued to be on the rise the last few years.
“She never panics. She knows what we have to do and she’s not shy about taking a shot. The girls look at her and she’s calm and just goes out there and plays hard, and that’s an easy example to follow,” he added. “There’s just a confidence about her, you know you’re always in the game with a kid like her on the court.”
“I started playing basketball in second grade and through middle school I always knew that scoring 1,000 points and just being a good basketball player overall is the ultimate goal. Freshman year, I started off a little rocky. But toward the end I was really confident in my role and I felt like this is what I was meant to be doing. I felt really comfortable in the position that I was at,” Bernhardt said. “The transition from middle school was tough, which is probably a lot of people’s hardest time, being a freshman and being scared to put yourself out there. You don’t want to over-do it in front of the older girls, but you always want to display your skills and show you can be a prominent part of the team. For me that was the hardest thing to balance. But my freshman year, I had a lot of seniors who I personally really liked, and they made me feel comfortable enough to be confident in myself. That definitely helped me for sure.”
Now, it’s Bernhardt who is the senior showing the way for the younger group — in three sports. She’s also an accomplished field hockey and lacrosse player, even though she plans to head to The College of New Jersey to continue her basketball career and study exercise science/physical therapy.
“Personally I feel like playing all the different sports. made me better at all three of the ones that I have been playing. Field hockey and lacrosse is a good break and gives me the balance that I need. Overall, I feel like playing three sports has helped me,” she said. “I learned throughout my career that it’s really important to stay resilient because everybody’s going to have a bad game, but it’s the way you come back from it, and I’ve come to learn that. Bad games? You just learn from them and then you grow from there.”
“She has a huge heart. She’s very outgoing and a happy-go-lucky person. Off the court, she has a beautiful smile and she’s so friendly with the younger kids,” Coyle said. “Our freshmen and sophomores are very fortunate to have her to be able to follow. One of our freshmen, her mom told me she wishes Madelynn was here for another year because her daughter tries to emulate her so much. Her personality off the court is contagious. She’s tough on the court, but after the game she’s as a sweet as they come.”
Bernhardt says she has come to embrace the leadership role, and that’s something she took on even as a younger player.
“Not to say that I was meant to be a leader, but I feel like it does come easily for me, so I feel very comfortable and I hope the girls on my team have respect for me, because I have respect for them and we’ve grown a really good relationship to where I can give them constructive criticism,” she said. “But we also know that we all love each other on this team. It’s been really good senior year for me.”
The numbers Bernhardt has put up during her career are impressive. She’s hit 163 3-pointers, grabbed nearly 500 rebounds, has more than 200 steals and even has 40 blocked shots — not bad for a 5-foot-7 guard. But it’s never been just about the numbers with Bernhardt. She and Prescott have worked hard their entire careers to bring some respect to OLMA girls basketball.
“It’s really rewarding coming from a freshman year when we weren’t really respected that much. Me and Savannah really worked hard to grow the program up to where it is today. It’s great to have somebody else to rely on and just know that she’s always going to be there to pick up the pace,” Bernhardt said. “I’ve known a lot of my friends at OLMA for the longest time, even before coming into high school, and they’ve helped me so much, whether I’m playing sports with them or just in the classroom with them. It’s just made me really grateful that I’ve been able to have a huge support group throughout high school. I’ll definitely miss them, for sure. OLMA is everything that they say it is. I feel really comfortable when I’m there and I’ve definitely gained a lot of friends.”
“Her legacy is she’s a kid who came in and from the first day was a positive influence who worked hard and was an easy example for the girls to follow. She’s somebody who made herself into a great player. She wasn’t lazy, she put in the work,” Coyle said. “She has great athletic ability, but she has definitely worked to make herself a better player. She’s one of those gym rats, a throwback kid. To me, that’s her legacy. She’s somebody I will point to in the future — a three-sport kid, and you don’t get many of them anymore who can still be 4.0 students. It’s great to see. In this day and age, it seems parents are trying to get their kids to do one thing, and she’s a role model for kids who want to play multiple sports and help their school.”
Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sullyglorydays@gmail.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays
