After her freshman season with the Robbinsville High basketball team, it was amazing Allie Neumann ever made it to her sophomore year.
With numerous girls transferring or quitting the team; the Ravens were left with one experienced player and a slew of ninth-graders trying to navigate the varsity wars.
“It was brutal,” Neumann said. “A lot of times we had five freshmen on the floor at once and we were going against 18-year-olds that were D-3 commits.”
So, what kept them coming back?
“We kind of embraced the challenge,” Neumann said. “We just knew that what they had is what we would be chasing when we were juniors and seniors.”
They hung in and after that 6-17 season it was well worth the effort, as they never had a losing season again.
The Ravens entered their March 1 state tournament game against South Plainfield at 13-9, which marks the first time in program history that Robbinsville posted three straight winning seasons.
They also beat Steinert for their first Mercer County Tournament win since 2017, but lost to Notre Dame in the quarterfinals.
In discussing the six freshmen from 2018-19 who made it through to this year, coach Joe Washington said, “Allie, Vanessa Sabol, Kailey Pacifico, Becky Blitz, Emily Reagan and Giana Bonfanti have all been extremely dedicated to what we’ve done here and bought into the process of what we do, and their families have as well. Hopefully we’re able to sustain the success they’ve built.”
One of the key figures in that senior six-pack is Neumann, who leads the Ravens in scoring (14.1 points per game), 3-pointers (50) and free throws made (51).
She is second to junior Kara Keating in steals with 48 and third in assists with 29.
It marks the third straight season Neumann has led the team in scoring after averaging 13.7 last year and 9.8 per game as a sophomore. Entering states she had 865 career points (for a 10.9 average), 119 assists, 160 steals and 132 3-pointers.
“She’s been a very consistent player from the minute she walked in the gym,” Washington said. “Most of the games she was definitely going to be the focus of other teams and it didn’t matter. She’s still been able to provide us with a spark offensively and carry us through some games even.”
It’s a lot of the same at the other end of the court.
“On the defensive end she sets the tone for us as far as toughness goes,” Washington continued. “We’re an undersized team most of the time and we just played tough defense, it starts with her being able to pressure the ball. I’m just extremely impressed. She’s the reason we’ve been able to accomplish some of the things we have this year.”
Neumann was not surprised by her bump in scoring this year, figuring it would have been a disappointment if she had not gotten better.
“I definitely expected growth from junior year because I did a lot of work in the summer,” she said. “I improved my shot a lot so I was definitely expecting to score more this year.”
Despite the extra defensive attention she receives, Robbinsville ran some plays that got her open on the perimeter, and Neumann also has the ability to get open at a spot she likes on the floor just through the normal flow of the offense. Interestingly enough, she was not born a shooter.
“Not always,” Neumann said. “Sophomore year I had a lot of mostly lay-ups and transition scoring. I developed my shot the summer after sophomore year, and junior year it started to get going.”
What happened? Did she consult with a shooting guru?
Hardly.
“I just started shooting and they just started going in,” Neumann said. “There wasn’t any rhyme or reason to it.”
Neumann began playing rec basketball in fourth grade, with Sabol’s father serving as her coach. She played AAU with the Mavericks for a few seasons but “it was nothing super serious.” Neumann also played for the RHS soccer team, but that sport has been overtaken by hoops.
“Growing up soccer was definitely my main sport,” she said. “I played a lot of travel. I just found out I really loved basketball more so I started dedicating more time toward that.”
Which turned out to be a good thing for Washington and his team, since she became such an integral force for the Ravens over the years.
In looking at her stats, shooting 3-pointers is just part of Neumann’s arsenal.
“On the nights where her shot’s not going down she’s able to get to the paint and try to get to the foul line, where she can still be a productive part of the offense,” Washington said.
The coach slightly disagreed with Neumann about her perimeter shooting, feeling she had a nice shot from the start. From there, she became a complete player.
“She was able to build on some of those other skills,” he said. “She can get to the basket, working on some different finishes that she’s able to accomplish now. She’s not always a vocal leader but she’s constantly doing the right thing and constantly working hard and I think that rubs off on a lot of the other girls that are her age and the younger girls too. She sets the tone of a game for us.”
In assessing her own game, Neumann feels defense is where she truly excels.
“I’m able to shut down a lot of the other teams’ better players,” she said. “One of our strengths has been holding teams to under 40 points this season, that’s been able to keep us in games even if we’re not scoring as much as we could on the offensive end.”
Indeed, the Ravens held 14 foes to 40 points or less and were 13-3 in those games. Keating and Neumann helped provide numerous transition buckets with their steals.
“You definitely need quickness to match the ball handler,” Neumann said of her pilfers. “Also, scouting helps a lot in terms of knowing if they’re right-handed, left-handed, what their main moves are and knowing how to stop them. I definitely watch a lot of film before games to see what other teams are doing.”
Washington feels that the steals are only a by-product of the system, and that Neumann’ and Keating’s true defensive value goes beyond that.
“We’ve been able to play man-to-man defense the last two years,” the coach said. “We hadn’t been able to do that as a program. That starts with what Allie and Kara are able to do on the ball. Not allowing a team to just come down court and start their offense is part of what we do.”
This will be Neumann’s final year of scholastic ball, as she has hopes of heading to the midwest for college. Her top choices are Marquette and Depaul—she loves Chicago—and Neumann is waiting to see who offers the best financial package. Her plans are to follow in her mom’s footsteps and become a physical therapist.
“I spent a lot of time in the clinic with her when I was younger and I was always super exposed to it,” Neumann said. “So I kind of wanted to do it.”
And while basketball will become a memory, it will be a pleasant memory thanks to six seniors who stuck it out and turned a rough situation into a good one.
“A lot of them were playing varsity as freshmen and shouldn’t have been,” Washington said. “It would have been easy for them to kind of just quit.”
But they didn’t, and are getting their just awards.
“It’s been great,” Neumann said. “Just to be able to work with the same group of girls all these years, we’ve been seeing improvements over the years. Looking back at our freshman year, it’s been rewarding to be where we are now in the CVC.”
And Neumann has been an integral part every step of the way
Allie Neumann is one of six seniors who led the RHS girls’ basketball team to a winning record this season. It was the first time in program history that the team posted three straight winning seasons. (Photo by Rich Fisher.)// <
