Leah Hodick and Lindsey Welsh have shared experiences as teammates in AAU basketball and they have been on opposite sides of one of District 2’s most heated rivalries.
Now, they will go back to being teammates again after each committed to continue academic and athletic careers as members of the DeSales University women’s basketball team.
Hodick, the former Pittston Area all-star center who finished her career at Riverside, and Welsh, a 1,000-point career scorer and multi-year all-star at Old Forge, reached their decisions separately during the season.
“We didn’t really talk about it until after we had decided,” Hodick said.
The two future Bulldogs were part of a special team in the spring and summer of 2019 when they helped the JB Hoops Bucci national team win 27 of 29 games while finishing first or second in each of its AAU tournament appearances during the live college recruiting season.
Hodick scored the go-ahead basket in the final minute of the team’s last game when it won its bracket for the first time ever at USJN 17U Girls Nationals, taking the Platinum Consolation title. Welsh was second on the team in assists and steals when it went 6-1 at the tournament.
During the high school season, Hodick was the third-leading scorer at Riverside, one of just three District 2 teams to win 20 regular-season games. Welsh was the second-leading scorer at District 2 Class 2A champion Old Forge, one of the four District 2 teams still on hold in the quarterfinals of the state tournament, which has been suspended because of the coronavirus.
They will team up again at DeSales, the Lehigh Valley school that went 23-5 in 2019-20 when it won the Middle Atlantic Conference Freedom title and earned a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I tournament berth for the second straight year.
“Each time I went down, the people were really friendly,” said Hodick, averaged 8.8 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.8 assists for the Lady Vikes, whose only regular-season losses came to Lackawanna League Division 3 champion Dunmore. “They treat you like family right from the start.”
Her high school career ended in a District 2 Class 3A semifinal loss to Wyoming Valley Conference Division 2 champion Holy Redeemer.
Hodick made an immediate impact in high school basketball at Pittston Area where she broke into the starting lineup as a freshman. She was voted first-team WVC Division 1 all-star by division coaches as a sophomore, but did not play for the Lady Patriots again.
Following a transfer to Riverside, Hodick sat out a season under Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association transfer rules.
Hodick chose DeSales after also making recruiting visits to Wilkes University, Lycoming College and Division II Millersville University. She plans to study sports exercise physiology.
Welsh intends to study biology and continue into the physicians assistant program. She selected DeSales after also visiting the University of Rochester and giving strong consideration to the University of Scranton.
“I like the way they play – a lot of transition,” Welsh said. “That’s my game.”
After leading the Lady Devils in scoring her first three seasons, Welsh averaged nearly 12 points per game this season while running the offense and helping set up Olivia Ciullo, who became a 1,000-points scorer as a junior.
“She controls the whole floor for us,” Old Forge coach Ron Stachiotti said of Welsh. “She’s smart. She knows the game.”
