Trib HSSN girls basketball player of the week – Maggie Spell

School – Thomas Jefferson

Class – Senior

Height – 5-foot-10

Position – Guard

#Earned – On the heels of a strong 2024-25 campaign in which the Thomas Jefferson girls basketball team finished 22-6 with losses to district Class 5A champion Peters Township in both the WPIAL semifinals and the PIAA second round, expectations were high coming into this season.

However, when junior guard Kaylee DeAngelo, a Robert Morris commit, tore her ACL before the first game, those high hopes took a little shot.

But the Jaguars rebounded from that bad news and have been the dominant team most expected.

Senior guard Maggie Spell and her teammates have all stepped up their game as Thomas Jefferson won the Section 4-5A crown with a perfect 12-0 record and earned the No. 2 seed in the Class 5A basketball playoffs with an overall record of 20-2.

Victory No. 21 came in the first round of the postseason Friday.

TJ jumped out to a 17-6 lead after one quarter and never looked back in a 65-26 win over Penn Hills.

Spell led the way with a game-high 24 points.

The senior guard has been doing that her entire career.

In her first two years of her high school career at Shady Side Academy, she helped lead the Bulldogs to a WPIAL 3A runner-up trophy in ninth grade and a district championship in 10th grade.

In the 2024 finals against Avonworth, Spell scored 31 points as SSA beat the Antelopes, 52-45.

This season, Spell has scored 416 points in 23 games and is averaging 18 points per game.

Spell has made a habit of hitting milestone baskets in the postseason.

As a sophomore, she hit the 1,000-point mark in the playoffs, and she is about to reach 2,000 points for her career on Wednesday.

Spell enters the quarterfinals against Fox Chapel needing only seven points to become the 48th district girls basketball player to reach the 2,000-point mark.

In her high school career, Spell has played for the Bulldogs and the Jaguars. Next year in college, she will be a Camel.

Spell made her decision last summer to continue her academic and basketball career at Division I Campbell in North Carolina.

2026 Trib HSSN Girls Basketball Players of the Week

Week 4 – Alexis Cashdollar, Mars

Week 3 – Mimi Thiero, Quaker Valley

Week 2 – Erica Gribble, Greensburg Central Catholic

Week 1 – Karis Thomas, Shady Side Academy