Basketball
Favorite player: KD (Kevin Durant)
Favorite team: Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Playing in district playoffs my sophomore year was one of best experiences I had in my high school career.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Shooting a ball in a game, and it got stuck between the backboard and the rim.
Music on my playlist: Jersey/Philly club music
Future plans: Hopefully playing college ball
Favorite motto: “The moment you give up is the moment you let someone else win.” - Kobe Bryant
One goal by turning 30: To have my own car and house
One thing people don’t know about me: I used to dance when I was younger, but I stopped because i didn’t really like it as much as I liked basketball.
By Mary Jane Souder
It’s a story that’s been written countless times.
How a player – with the 1,000-point milestone on the horizon – has an entourage showing up at their game to witness the historic moment. It’s a safe bet they will have their cell phones ready to record the basket, and almost always, they will have balloons and/or sometimes flowers in tow.
It’s not unusual for players to acknowledge feeling pressure and immense relief when the wait is over.
Ava Culler isn’t in that number.
With only her grandfather from her family in attendance, the Springfield Twp senior reached the 1,000-point milestone when everyone least expected it – on the road at Central Bucks West last Tuesday.
Turns out Culler was far more concerned about winning the game than following the planned script and keeping her point total under 29 – the magic number to reach the 1,000-point milestone.
The celebration was decidedly modest when – midway through the third quarter – Culler buried a foul shot to complete a three-point play for the 1,000th point of her career.
“I got home, and everybody was mad at me,” Culler said. “But it’s about winning the game.”
Culler’s coach, teammates, family and friends made sure the milestone was celebrated appropriately three days later at the Spartans’ night game against Harry S Truman, and the truth of the matter is – Culler’s 1,000-point story will be told and retold more than most because it was anything but typical since no one – not even coach Dave Giordano – was prepared.
And no one could fault them. (More on that later)
Back to the beginning
In truth, Culler had to be considered an unlikely candidate to reach the thousand-point milestone when she came on board at Springfield Twp.
Granted, she had played basketball for fun as a youngster growing up, but she was a relative newcomer to organized basketball and had only been playing since eighth grade, missing half of that season with a concussion.
Although her opportunities were limited in middle school since it also was during the COVID years, Culler still had lofty goals when she entered high school
“The thought of getting 1,000 points came my freshman year, and it was something I wanted to achieve,” she said. “I started loving basketball more as I got into it.”
It was not always smooth sailing for Culler, who battled an injury most her freshman season and scored just 39 points. But Giordano knew he had inherited a special talent.
“We knew she was raw,” the Spartans’ coach said. “Freshman year she had some shoulder issues, but she committed strongly to hoops. She really loved basketball, and I told her this numerous times – she had that factor you only see in a handful of girls.
“She’s the female version of Dennis Rodman – she goes after everything. She goes for balls other girls don’t even think of leaving their feet for. I knew she was special right there, and she really enjoyed playing defense.
“Anything close to the basket – if she had the ball, it was going back up, and she was going to finish. It was nothing I could coach. You could just see she had it.”
Initially, Culler, according to her coach, struggled with her jump shot.
“We did the best we could for her with what we had available freshman year,” Giordano said. “But she really put in a lot of work between the summer of her freshman and sophomore year, and she came back stronger.
“She was jumping higher, and when everything came together junior and senior year, she was like Mose Malone. She’d throw the ball up, whether she had a clean look or not, knowing that by the time the ball came off the rim, she was already landing and going back up again to get another rebound. She just had that knack. Once we realized she had that knack, we tried to run our offense through her on the low post.
“She also started to develop in other ways. Her handle got better, her jump shot got better, and she has a motor that doesn’t stop. I’m like – ‘We really have somebody special here.’”
The celebration that wasn’t
Roll back the calendar to the days preceding Culler’s historic night.
The plan was actually very simple.
“Obviously, we knew it was coming,” Giordano said. “She had missed a couple of games because of a bone bruise on her knee, so our trainer did a great job of getting her back to being Ava, but she wasn’t quite 100 percent.
“She has a twin sister (Alana), and they’re very close. She reached out to me, and she and some friends of hers had a plan. I also talked to her mom.”
They knew the big day was on the not-too-distant horizon when Culler scored 24 points in a loss to Council Rock South, so the brainstorming began in earnest. Culler was just 29 points from the 1,000-point milestone with games at Central Bucks West Tuesday and then a game at home against Harry S Truman on Friday.
“We put our heads together,” Giordano said. “We knew the West game was going to be a tough game. There was emotion with the relationship between myself and (former Springfield assistant coach) Syd (Ott). I knew they were better than what they had showed the first time we played them, so I was counting on West being very strong defensively and focusing on Ava.
“So, I said, ‘Okay, here’s the plan. Maybe we try to get her 20 or 25 points, knowing we play Truman on Friday, and it would be hopefully a couple of easy baskets, and everyone would be happy.
“Ava was aware of this – we wanted to include her, and she was like, ‘Okay, that sounds good.’ Like every other girl, she wanted to do it at home in front of her friends and family and all that. I’m like, ‘It’s good, we’ll be fine,’ and I had all these normal things you would do for an athlete scoring a thousand.
“A couple of people asked me, ‘Do you have a backup plan?’ I knew 29 was something she could get, but she didn’t have her wind back yet, so I wasn’t worried. We had it all laid out, and I said, ‘I really don’t think she’ll get it. Not that I don’t want her to, but it’s going to be a tough game.’ I guess I convinced a lot of people.”
The best laid plans went out the window in a hurry when the game at CB West began, and Culler had 16 points in the first quarter. By halftime, she had 24, and Giordano was in a panic.
“I’m running around like a crazy man,” the Spartans’ coach said. “I was talking to Chas (Cathers), the West AD, I was talking to the trainers and game managers. Then I was talking to the referee. I was more worried about getting yelled at by her family than us winning the game.
“CB West is a solid half hour ride away if not more. They called back to the school and homes where they were doing stuff and said, ‘You guys better get up here because she’s going to get it in about 20 minutes.’ It was mayhem.”
Midway through the third quarter, Culler scored on a putback and then buried the foul shot for the 1,000th point of her career.
“The bench exploded and we stormed the court,” Giordano sad. “I called a 30-second time out, and they were gracious enough not to even charge me the timeout.”
Culler acknowledged it wasn’t the script anyone had imagined.
“I didn’t think I was going to have that big of a first quarter, but my average was almost 20, so I should have known it was probably bound to happen Tuesday night,” she said. “I thought it was going to be Friday, and people would be there Friday. My (twin) sister missed it, my mom missed it, my stepdad missed it. The only person who was there was my grandfather, and he didn’t even record it. My mom and siblings came after the game. They got there after I score 1,000 points, and we took pictures after the game.”
Although Culler’s dream of scoring a thousand points became a reality when everyone lease expected it, that did not diminish its significance.
“It was really exciting,” she said. “It was just a lot, especially because it was such a tense game.
“I wasn’t even thinking about the thousand points. I was just thinking about the game because it was so close, and I didn’t start thinking about it until some of the JV girls were telling me – ‘Hey, we need you to stop scoring. You’re about to hit it.’ I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ and then it was like, ‘Ava, you have 24, and it’s halftime.’ I was like, ‘I’m sorry guys. We have to play to win the game.’”
The Spartans won the game 64-60, and Culler had 34 points.
“Ave was focusing on - we need to get this win,” Giordano said. “And she just played like a woman possessed.”
A bright future
Culler – a solid student - will be a welcome addition to some collegiate basketball program next year, although she has not made a final decision.
She plans to major in sports medicine or exercise science with her sights set on one day becoming an athletic trainer. She is interning with Springfield Twp’s athletic trainer, Sal Raffa. It’s a job that feels right not only because of her interest in sports but also the opportunity to help others.
Culler is writing her grad speech and college essay about her own experience with an injury that forced her to miss a major portion of her freshman year.
“It was very hard because – at the time – I felt like basketball was my only identity, so not being able to play and seeing my teammates playing, knowing I couldn’t help them was hard,” Culler said. “I kind of lost myself, but the trainer that I’m mentoring with came in and helped me a lot with my injury.
“He was the one who told me being an athlete isn’t just about playing. It’s about supporting your team when you can’t be there. He was a big part of the reason why I want to be a trainer.”
For now, Culler is focused on closing out her final high school season on a high note.
It’s been just a pleasure to watch her,” Giordano said. “She’s a great teammate, she’s a great captain. She’s been a captain for two years.
“The girls love her – she has a great relationship with everybody. She just wants to play, she loves to play basketball. She’ll be playing in college. She’s not a secret anymore. She’s kind of a late bloomer, and I think she’ll do quite well.”
