Another 1,000-Point Record!

Alyna Baharozian ’18 scored her 1,000th point (and then some) on Wednesday, February 21, during a 58–41 win over Milton Academy. Alyna is the second female basketball player in Groton history to hit 1,000 points. She topped a milestone reached only four times before by any Groton athlete—most recently just four weeks ago.

 

The girls basketball tri-captain was seventeen points shy of 1,000 entering the game, her last home game of the year. With 6:17 remaining in the second half, she scored a three-pointer, precisely hitting 1,000. As the crowd roared, the game paused and Alyna’s teammates rushed toward her and hoisted her in the air. “It was amazing when the team ran on the court and picked me up,” Alyna said. “It was really a team effort that got me here.”

 

Coach Joe Crail had noticed this basketball standout even back in Second Form (eighth grade), when she already was playing on varsity. “I saw the work ethic—how hard she worked,” he recalled. “She was the first one in the gym, and the last to leave.”

 

He was not surprised to see Alyna's point tally skyrocket. “I’ve been coaching eleven years. She’s the best overall player I’ve ever coached,” he said. “Each year, she came back better and better.”

 

Alyna, who will play for Middlebury College next year, was averaging 12.7 points per game this season, but in the two games prior to the Milton matchup had scored seventeen and twenty-three points. Spectators, some with signs (“Alyna, queen-a the court!”), hoped she would reach her milestone on Wednesday, before a home crowd, rather than at the final game of the season on Saturday, at school rival St. Mark’s. After her thousandth point swished through the net, she went on to sink a three-pointer and a foul shot before the game ended; she goes into the St. Mark’s game with 1,004 points.

 

Alyna stands among very few thousand-pointers in Groton basketball: Joe Collins ’18 scored his 1,000th point on January 24, breaking a barrier that had been untouched since 2013, when Marissa Garey '13 totaled 1,070 points. Drew Daigneault '10 racked up 1,088 in 2009–10, and Asenso Ampim '07 scored 1,050 points during the 2006–07 season.

Groton School congratulates Alyna, Coach Crail, and the entire girls varsity basketball team. Go Zebras!