Freshmen Kylie Per and Ella Morris are expected to contribute right away. The 5-foot-9 Per is a point guard while the 5-foot-6 Morris is more of a shooting guard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re both high IQ players who can make an impact right away,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cElla is somebody you can rely on to spread the court. Every time she\u2019s out there we have better spacing and can stretch the defense. Kylie is a bigger guard who can run the offense and score at all three levels.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re always in the gym. They play year-round and that\u2019s where their confidence comes from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both freshmen come from basketball families. Ella is the daughter of Owls assistant coach Ron Morris, who stepped down as Bensalem\u2019s boys head coach following the 2024-25 season. Per is the granddaughter of legendary Bensalem boys coach Sheldan Per, who had the school\u2019s court named after him. Her father, Geoffrey, was also a longtime assistant with the boys program, and is the school\u2019s principal.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the Owls most interesting dynamic will be the relationship between Per and Ellzy, who will share the court and split the team\u2019s ball-handling duties. Johnson said the pair work well together, especially because Ellzy plays so hard on defense that she sometimes needs a break from bringing the ball up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no competition there, I love Kylie,\u201d Ellzy said. \u201cWe pick each other up and I feel like I\u2019m paving the way for her. I don\u2019t want to be selfish and if the other team is focusing on me, it\u2019ll help my teammates get buckets.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Bensalem has a lot of young talent to be excited about, its ceiling in 2027 could be determined by a pair of X-factors. Senior captain Jordyn Bell, a 5-foot-8 guard, tore her ACL playing soccer this past spring but could be cleared to play basketball toward the end of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sophomore guard Falyn Savage played varsity as a freshman but plays for a high-level club soccer team throughout the winter and might not be available on a game-to-game basis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c(Savage) is a game-changer when she\u2019s out there but we\u2019ve got to understand her situation and support her,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cBecause, big picture, she\u2019s playing soccer at the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bensalem primarily ran a dribble-drive offense centered around McShane last season, but will shift to a five-out, motion-based offense this season. Johnson expects the Owls to rely on their defense as their young players adjust to scoring at the varsity level.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The goals remain the same as last season: Compete for the SOL Patriot, host a District 1 playoff game and reach the state playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one thing that will be key for us is mental toughness,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe\u2019re a relatively young team. Do we have the ability to look for a smart shot? To stop the other team from getting an easy run after a miss. Those are the upperclassmen-type plays we\u2019ll need to make.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Freshmen Kylie Per and Ella Morris are expected to contribute right away. The 5-foot-9 Per is a point…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[191,193,192,194],"class_list":["post-322125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bensalem","tag-bensalem","tag-bensalem-headlines","tag-bensalem-news","tag-bensalem-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}