Madeline Jankowski is of the belief that great shooters need to shoot. That’s why she doesn’t stop.
The Middle Village, Queens resident was at St. Sebastian’s in Woodside hoisting up shots prior to her 4 p.m. game at the Aviator Winter Classic Jan. 3. The St. Mary’s (L.I.) guard was taking 25 shots from eight different spots in a gym that doubles as a community center. She said she also goes there often after practices with her father and a friend from the school’s boys team.
“You can’t score unless you shoot,” Jankowski said. “Coach [Tom Flynn] says all the time, ‘Just keep shooting.’”
She did both against Midwood later that afternoon.
The 5-foot-8 junior connected on six 3-pointers, almost all hitting nothing by net, and scored 22 points in St. Mary’s 60-36 win over the Hornets. Jankowski, the team’s second leading scorers, has provided the perfect complement to slashing senior point guard Shannon Flynn.
“[Artie LaGreca] started the game a box-and-one on Shannon,” Tom Flynn, Shannon’s father, said. “You see how long that lasted. [Jankowski] hit three 3s in a row and you can’t play a box and 1 anymore.”
This is Jankowski’s first full season at the Manhasset school. She transferred last winter from St. Francis Prep, where she helped lead the junior varsity team to the Brooklyn/Queens championship game as a freshman. She said she just wasn’t happy at SFP, felt the school was too big, and not what she expected. Jankowski kept that thought to herself the summer heading into sophomore year. Her 5-year-old brother Thomas had a seizure and fell down the stairs. He was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor that needed surgery to reduce its size.
“I just felt like my little brother came first,” she said.
She left the Fresh Meadows school during basketball tryouts as her brother was starting physical therapy following successful surgery. She felt the need for a change of scenery and chose St. Mary’s because she had friends there and it felt like St. Francis Prep, only smaller. After a few days, she introduced herself to Tom Flynn, made the varsity team, but had to sit out until January because of CHSAA transfer rules.
“The whole team took me in like I was already part of the team,” Jankowski said.
She has always been a superb shooter, but has been trying to improve the other aspects of her game, driving more and becoming a better defender. For the last year she has been traveling weekly to Buckley Country Day School in Roslyn to train with Pro Hoops Academy, a player development group founded by former Hofstra guard Jay Hernandez. Jankowski was told about it by St. Francis Prep guard and Glendale resident Michael Murray.
She also spent last summer playing for Flynn’s Long Island Extreme AAU team along with Boston College-bound guard Kristen Doherty, Tori Jarosoz, who is headed to Vanderbilt, as well as St. Mary’s teammates. Jankowski called it the best basketball experience of her life.
“You are playing with those kids and everyone of them is fighting to be first in every drill,” Tom Flynn said.
Jankowski sees her St. Mary’s team as underdogs, not considered among the elite in CHSAA Nassau/Suffolk. The Gaels are 6-2 and 1-2 in the league after a 66-54 loss to defending champion Holy Trinity on Jan. 5 where Jankowski had 11 points and just one 3-pointer. That won’t be a discouragement though.
“She can have a game where see goes 0-for-10 and the next day shoot 20 [shots],” Tom Flynn said. “We are not like ‘Stop shooting the ball.’ Shooters shoot.”