(Our Shore Ortho Senior of the Month feature highlights a 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. Ocean City star basketball player Kori Segich is our choice for the month of March.)
By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
Kori Segich doesn’t say much before basketball games. Or during them. Or after them. Or at practice. He’s a quiet kid who lets his game do the talking.
And when you’re as good as Segich was during his career at Ocean City High, words don’t need to the spoken. The game speaks, loud and clear.
Segich was banged up with injuries a bit during his sophomore and junior seasons, and that limited him to 34 games in two years. He averaged a respectable 13 points per game during those two seasons, but as a senior he was unstoppable. He scored an eye-popping 719 points in one season, just 30 games, an average of nearly 24 points per game, one of the best in the state.
He also helped lead Ocean City to one of its best seasons in school history, as the Red Raiders set a school record with 26 wins and had just four losses. Those losses came to just two teams — Middle Township, twice, in the regular season, and arch rival Mainland, once in the Cape-Atlantic League championship and then a 69-67 three-overtimes heartbreaker in the South Jersey Group 3 title game.
“There were some great experiences playing for coach (John) Bruno and playing with my friends. I had a great time, too. I expected (a successful season). I think my teammates did as well because last year we made a run to the sectional finals and that was our goal again coming into this season,” said Segich, a 6-foot-3 combo forward/guard. “The stats just look like that because of the games I missed, but this year was, by far, my best year. Free-throw shooting was a big difference. I think I went from shooting in the 60s, percentage-wise, to this year in low 80s. And then just shooting with confidence. If I missed, I moveed on to the next one.
“Everyone on the team was pretty good friends and our chemistry was very good. We hung out with each other all the time, team dinners and stuff like that. So whether I was doing the scoring or Dylan (Schlatter) or Charlie (LaBarre) — it didn’t matter, as long as we won.”
“He was exceptional. It’s been a while since I had such a complete player here. Connor Laverty was that kind of player, Luciano Lubrano. Kori’s offense was as good as anybody I’ve had in a while. The fact that he missed 15 or 16 games and still got 1,000 points was quite an accomplishment, all things considered. Through it all he remained humble about it and I think that’s what made him exceptional — he didn’t come off as selfish or that he had to get his, which is a mentality a lot of players have nowadays. He was extremely coachable and just a prolific scorer,” said Red Raiders skipper John Bruno. “He had a lot of Gannon Brady in him in terms of letting the game come to him. But when we needed it, he would rise to the occasion. Kori did the same thing where it just seemed like when we needed a big bucket or we needed something to get us going, he was at the root of it all. What made him so successful, too, was the chemistry we had among our starting five. They all accepted Kori’s role as being the scorer.”
Ocean City was a unique team this year in that rarely did the Raiders go to their bench. Pat Grimley, Ben McGonigle, Segich, Schlatter and LaBarre all had at least 100 points, while nobody else had more than 43 the entire season. It was a tight-knit group that had a ton of chemistry because they all had been playing together for years.
That chemistry was tested on several occasions, and usually the Raiders found a way to pull through. Early in the season they rallied from being down by 15 at halftime to beating St. Augustine Prep in overtime. They scored road wins at St. Joseph Academy, at Mainland, at Millville, at Lower Cape May — all difficult places to play. They rallied from a huge deficit in the sectional quarterfinals to scratch out a 46-44 win over Cherry Hill West, and hung on to beat Camden Eastside by three points in the South Jersey Group 3 semis.
“These kids never wanted to come out of games. Every once in a while his jumper would get a little long, but for the most part he overcame that. You can always say, ‘hey coach, I’m a little tired, can I get a break?’ But if he wants to stay out there and if he’s going to be productive, I’m going to leave him out there. That’s what he did for most of the year,” Bruno said of Segich. “He was quiet as could be with his teammates, but the beauty that we had was the camaraderie they all had with each other. Two or three weeks before he even got to 1,000 points they were all calling him ‘1K’ and he was like 100 points away. He just kind of shrugged it off. He would just smirk; he never got a big head about anything. With today’s athletes, that’s kind of a lost demeanor, to just stay within yourself and let each day come. He was great in practice even though he wasn’t a very verbal leader. He definitely led by example.”
What made Segich so special as a scorer was he could beat you in so many ways. He could hit threes, score in transition, go to the rim and also had a mid-range game that rivaled that of Jimmy Chitwood.
“One of the strengths we had as a team was our ability to hit that mid-range jumper. Pat Grimley would do it occasionally and Dylan was good from short or long range, but Kori is the one who set the tone for that. His ability to shoot off the dribble — most kids can catch-and-shoot, a lot of kids are good at that; he was exceptional at that, too, but he had that knack of being able to shoot off the dribble, which is a lost art. Kids either shoot threes or go to the rim. Kori could do all three of those things. That made him difficult to guard. If you came out on him, he’d go to the rim, and if you played off, he’d hit a three. If you got on him in the lane, he’d pull up and hit a jumper. So he was really tough to guard,” Bruno said. “He shot the ball extremely well. He might be the best shooter in South Jersey. He shot over 50 percent from two- and three-point range, and at the free-throw line at one point he made 39 in a row. What better thing could you want than a kid who gets fouled, hits from the line and can score in all three phases of the game? That’s what made him so effective, there are very few players who can score at all three levels and he did that on a consistent basis.”
Segich wishes he could have made just one more shot in his career, though, in any one of the three overtimes that seemed to stretch on for an eternity against Mainland in the South Jersey final.
“We set a school record for wins in a season, so that’s the coolest thing, and making another push for a sectional title. Even though we didn’t win, it was a great game. I’ll remember that game for the rest of my life. I’m sure, down the line, if I have kids they’ll be watching that game. When you look at it from a fan’s perspective, it seems tiring, but you have so much adrenaline and it doesn’t faze you until after. That’s when the fatigue kicked in,” said Segich, who had 19 points and seven rebounds in that game. “I couldn’t have wished for anything better in my career, other than obviously winning that game against Mainland. But I wouldn’t give it away for anything. Hopefully we set a good example for the younger kids coming up that they can do the same things.”
Having that kind of perspective isn’t easy for a teenager, but it bodes well for Segich’s future success. Of course, the loss to Mainland sticks in his craw, but eventually he’ll be better for it, knowing he can take a tough loss and move on in life, and be thankful for everything that led up to that opportunity.
“The first day after (the final game), it hit me that it was the last game I’ll ever play for Ocean City,” he said. “It was like 12 years of basketball were just over. I was upset and angry because if I had made just one more shot we could have won that game. But I really couldn’t ask for anything better in my career.”
Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sullyglorydays@gmail.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays
