Kelly Moravec reaches 1,000 points

The pursuit of 1,000 points was more dramatic than Newfield senior Kelly Moravec would have liked. She was just 13 points away from the milestone heading into her basketball team’s final game of the season against Dryden on March 4, but the game was canceled due to a COVID-19 case on Dryden’s team. Frantically, Newfield was able to schedule a game against Newark Valley the following day, and Moravec reached the 1,000-point mark by scoring 18 points.

To go from having the accomplishment be a near-certainty — Moravec had scored 31 points against Dryden earlier in the season — to perhaps not being able to play a final game at all was quite a sequence of events for the senior. She recalled how those two days went.

“My mom and my stepdad on that same night were trying to get another game because I obviously wanted to play one more time to get my 1,000 points,” Moravec said. “The athletic director and the school board all came together with my parents, and we were able to play out of our county against Newark Valley to be able to play that game.”

In addition, Moravec had played for Newark Valley head coach Greg Schweiger outside of school and was able to share the accomplishment with him on Friday night. She recalled the play that pushed her past 1,000 points and its similarities to when her twin sister, Katie, reached that point last season.

“It was interesting because I found out after my teammate Maura [Wood-Ellis] let me know that last year, when Katie got her 1,000 points, it was actually the same as my play,” Kelly said. “Maura came in and set a back screen for me to shoot a 3. I thought that it was really cool that it was the same as that play. Katie also shot a 3-pointer to get her 1,000 points.”

One difference between Kelly’s and Katie’s accomplishments, though, is that Kelly knew the milestone was coming this year, while Katie was caught off guard last season.

“I knew how far I was away,” Kelly said. “I was, at the beginning of the season, 119 points away. I kind of was figuring out how much I would have to average. My coach would let me know at the end of the game how much I had and how much I’m away and stuff. I went through the game knowing how much I had to still get.”

The pressure on Kelly grew as games continued to be removed from the schedule.

“Originally, we had 10 games,” she said. “I think it was only 12 points I had to average [per game] at first. But then, as the games kept getting canceled, the average had to go up and up. So, it definitely put a lot of pressure on me, but I just went into the game playing my hardest knowing that I could reach that.”

While Kelly was able to accomplish this, Newfield was bound to achieve much more this season after having all but two nonstarters returning to the team this season from last year’s state-ranked team. The support from the community never wavered despite the fact that they weren’t able to be in attendance.

“This season has been a little bit unfortunate and not what I expected it to be or wanted to be,” Kelly said. “But I think my family, the fans, my teammates and just everyone have been really supportive. Everyone wanted me to get this and everyone might try the hardest to make it the funnest night and the best it could be and I had a lot of support behind me throughout the whole thing. That was really great. I think that made the basketball season in general a lot better.”

Looking ahead, Kelly and her sister Katie plan on continuing to dominate opponents on the basketball court. They’ll be playing together at the collegiate level next year and have narrowed down their choices to three schools. Kelly talked about continuing her basketball journey alongside her sister.

“I’m really excited,” Kelly said. “I think it’s going to be so cool going into a different environment and playing with a different team and still being able to show our connection and play together. I think it’s going to be something really memorable and special so I’m really excited for that.”

Kelly added that what she’ll remember most from this year is how supportive all her teammates were of one another in the face of this difficult season. Reaching a career milestone in a shortened and hectic season will be a prominent memory for her as well.