Fearless Warrior

Jamillah Mason doesn’t believe in giving up. At the end of three quarters, her Audenried girls’ basketball team is trailing 41-18 against neighborhood rival Bok.

Despite little hope of catching up, the 5-foot-9 guard drives to the basket every chance she gets, dribbling past two or three defenders. When the final buzzer sounds, Mason looks up at the scoreboard and sees that her team lost 48-37.

"I get very frustrated when [the team] can’t score and we’re losing by 20," the senior said. "I just try to do what I can do."

The 17-year-old athlete has been doing a lot for Audenried this season. She finished the Division D game against Bok with 23 points, 17 of which came in the fourth quarter. A four-year varsity starter and two-time Public League all-star, Mason is averaging a team-high 18 points per game.

The player was hoping her points would propel the Warriors into the playoffs, but a 5-5 record heading into yesterday’s regular-season finale against Swenson didn’t cut it.

"I just wanted to finish strong and try to get to the playoffs," said Mason, an honor student. "I never made it before."

Audenried coach Bill Edger said opposing coaches who notice the athlete’s skills ask if she has played against boys, and the answer is yes.

Mason grew up on basketball in the Tasker Homes development, and often took on male competition.

The teen and her family are temporarily living in Southwest Philadelphia while the Tasker Homes are being rebuilt. Mason has a strong allegiance to her South Philly neighborhood, despite what she described as a rough atmosphere.

"I lived there my whole life, so it wasn’t dangerous for me," she said. "We didn’t want to move out, but we had to. I miss it."

Mason also established strong ties at Audenried. As president of her senior class, she is helping her classmates raise money for their senior trip to Virginia. She helped organize a recent skating trip as a fundraiser.

"We’re trying to do a little activity once a month to help raise money," she explained.

Mason also tried to make her on-court activities pay more dividends. She contributed her share of points over the last three seasons — including 17.1 points per game as a sophomore — but really wanted to step up her play as a senior. Sometimes that meant scoring 20-plus points like she did against Edison and Bok, but her leadership has boosted the team as well.

"I take it more serious now because I am in the 12th grade," Mason said. "I am more focused. I try to go after loose balls and rebounds."

Edger said he has noticed a new and improved senior leader.

"She has really stepped it up this year," he said. "She is really positive most of the time."

At times, though, it has been tough to stay optimistic. Mason and her teammates suffered through back-to-back two-win seasons in 2002 and 2003. This has been the Warriors’ best year since 2001, when they went 8-3.

One of Mason’s biggest fans is her boyfriend "Boo," aka Anthony, who graduated from Audenried last year. They display their bond with tattoos that read "Boo" and "Jamillah."

"He supports me," Mason said.

The athlete said she would love to play college basketball, but since recruiters don’t visit Audenried, she hasn’t had a chance to showcase her skills.

Don’t count her out yet, though — Mason has never been one to give up.

Around the court

The Bok and Prep Charter girls’ basketball teams opened the Public League playoffs yesterday afternoon in games that started after press time.

Bok made the cut by finishing the regular season with a 9-1 record, with its lone defeat coming Tuesday afternoon against Masterman. Rookie sensation Gloria Brown led the Wildkittens’ offense with 18 points in the 40-35 loss.

Bronze Division Bok faced a tough opening match yesterday against Gold Division champion University City. This is the first year since the 1998 season that the girls from Eighth and Mifflin made it to the playoffs.

The Prep Charter Lady Huskies are 2-for-2 in postseason appearances. The second-year squad finished second in the Silver Division with an 8-2 record, and opened the playoffs against Engineering and Science. The Lady Huskies were the underdogs, as E&S; finished fifth in the higher-echelon Gold Division, but that wasn’t about to intimidate them.

"We just need to stick to the game plan and continue playing consistently," said assistant coach Lisa Benvenuto.

No matter what the outcome of yesterday’s game, Prep Charter’s regular-season success earned the team a Gold Division promotion for 2005.

The St. Maria Goretti basketball squad fell short of its postseason goals, but finished the season with a very respectable 15-9 mark — the best record at the school in more than two decades. The Lambs closed out the regular season with a 53-41 win over West Catholic on Tuesday. Junior Shonte Skinner, who transferred in from Martin Luther King High, finished the contest with 22 points, giving her 1,017 for her career.

Goretti senior Janae Ostrowski ended her high-school career with a triple-double of 12 points, 11 rebounds and 10 blocked shots. For the season, she blocked a Catholic League and school-record 121 shots, topping her previous mark of 108.

"This has been a pretty good year for our team and a great one for the program as a whole," coach Chip Reitano said. "There has been excitement about basketball at Goretti like never before."