The Bellwood-Antis girls basketball program has been filled with amazing talent over the years, players Alli Campbell, Karson Swogger, and Riley D’Angelo, girls who proved over four-year careers they could fill it up with the best of them.
Following a career-high scoring effort earlier this month against Bellefonte, you can add senior Lilly Gerwert to that list.
Gerwert recently nudged her way into the Lady Blue Devils’ elite club of the 1,000-point scorers. She became Number 16 to hit the milestone last month in a victory against Bellefonte.
In that one, Gerwert had 35 points to push her well over 1,000 mark in a 74-11 victory.
“It’s such an honor. I’ve trained for hours and hours and had a lot of roadblocks along the way, so it is such an honor to be able to accomplish this milestone,” said Gerwert, who becomes the second member of her family to reach the 1,000-point mark playing basketball for B-A.
Gerwert’s father Brent played for the Blue Devils in the mid-1990s and until 2016 was the boys all-time leading scorer. His mark was surpassed by Nathan Davis the same season that Brent, now B-A’s head coach, led the Blue Devils to a District 6 2A championship.
Gerwert is a Lady Blue Devil veteran, who is a 3-year starter. She is one of the biggest contributors to the Lady Devils with averaging 20.6 points per game and 8.8 rebounds a game while shooting 49% from the field.
Gerwert has been playing basketball and watching basketball since she was young. She emerged from B-A’s elementary program and spent years playing travel basketball for Mid-Atlantic Sports under Brad Lear.
That type of pedigree made reaching 1,000 points a career goal early on for Gerwert, and to her it’s even more special that her father has been there to push her along the way.
“It’s a childhood dream. We’ve always had a great bond and basketball was a big role in that so to accomplish something this big and so has he it means everything to me,” she said. “His love for the game from watching him coach and helping me really just sparked my love for the game.”
Gerwert joins a distinguished list of Lady Devils to reach 1,000 career points that includes 15 other players. It’s led by Blair County’s all-time leader Alli Campbell, who ended her career at B-A in 2020 after scoring more than 3,000 points. The last player to reach the mark is current assistant Chelsea McCaulsky, who achieved the feat in 2023.
“She joins a long list of very talented Lady Blue Devil basketball players,” said Coach Kyley Longo. “She has worked tirelessly on expanding her game to not only be an inside force, but also a menace on the perimeter. I couldn’t be happier for her, and I am glad that she was able to experience that night at home in front of her family and friends and early in the season to be able to get that under her belt.”
Gerwert followed up on her big night by making the all-tournament team at the Fred B. Miller Memorial Tournament in Tyrone over the Christmas Break. She had 23 in a win over Central before scoring 16 in a championship loss to Penn Cambria.
Lilly plans to play in college on a division 2 level, but is uncommitted at this point.
“I just want to have fun playing my last year of high school basketball. We want to win districts and have a state tournament run,” she said.
Coach Longo said she knows Gerwert is looking forward to “going after the other goals that she has for herself and her team as they move through her senior season.”
