Maddie Webber is something of a budding artist.
“I’m really good at makeup and usually do my friends’ makeup for prom and homecoming,” Webber said. “I also just took an art class, so I’m really into doing watercolors.”
For most of her high school career, though, Webber, a senior at South Fayette, has used the basketball court as her canvas and the ball as her brush. Over the past two seasons, the Villanova recruit has established herself as one of the top players in the WPIAL and led the Lions to back-to-back WPIAL Class 5A titles.
A 5-foot-11 guard, Webber finished her four years at South Fayette with 1,387 points and capped it off with a stellar senior campaign that saw her average 17.1 points, 4.2 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 3.0 steals per game as she helped the team to its first state final appearance.
A two-time Post-Gazette Fab 5 selection, Webber is also the 2023 P-G Girls Basketball Player of the Year. She was selected among all players in the WPIAL and City League.
“When I got the job five years ago I coached the middle school team and she was a talented kid then,” South Fayette coach Bryan Bennett said. “I knew she was going to be a good high school player, but she’s just worked so hard, year in and year out. But the jump she made from one year to the next, I’ve never seen that out of any high school kid.”
That jump came between Webber’s sophomore and junior seasons, when she went from a cog in the wheel to the team’s leading scorer, averaging 18.2 points per game in the 2021-22 season and helping the Lions to a WPIAL title in an upset of top-seeded Chartiers Valley.
“With COVID, a lot of people didn’t know about her,” Bennett said. “But she had a breakout summer and was outstanding for us her junior year.”
Webber’s progression as a player mirrors the program’s overall success. In her freshman year, the Lions were 9-13 and didn’t make the WPIAL playoffs. But as she improved and became the focal point of the team, they improved to 14-6 and won a preliminary round playoff game in 2021 before capturing WPIAL titles in 2022 and 2023.
But it’s not like that was Webber’s first foray into playing for a WPIAL title. As a sophomore, she was a member of the Lions’ girls golf team that finished second to Peters Township in the 2020 WPIAL finals before she gave up golf to concentrate solely on the sport with the bigger, orange ball.
“I still golf occasionally, but not competitively like I did for the high school team,” Webber said. “It wasn’t tough to give up, to be honest.”
Now that she’s heading to Villanova, Webber has a bigger decision to make — Sheetz or Wawa?
“There’s a Wawa right near the campus,” Webber said. “I don’t know what that will be like. I’ve never been to Wawa before, so we’ll see.”
Changing convenience stores is one thing, but Webber will also have to fine-tune her game is she wants to make an immediate impact on a Wildcats squad that is coming off a Sweet 16 appearance in the NCAA tournament.
“I think that I have to play faster, especially my shot,” Webber said. “I also have to make decisions way faster because high school is not even close to the speed of the game in college.”
Still, when she eventually looks back on her body of work as a high school player, she’ll have to take pride in the finished piece. She styled herself as one of the premiere two-way guards in the area and put her signature on the program. She became only the second South Fayette player ever selected to the prestigious Post-Gazette Fabulous 5.
Yet, like every artist, she will nitpick at every brushstroke in retrospect.
“I’m really proud of what I’ve accomplished and I acknowledge it, but every game we win or lose, I look back and say I could have done this differently,” Webber said. “I’ll definitely go back and say I could have averaged more, I could have rebounded more and definitely could have done a lot more.”
Player of the Year history
In 1993, the Post-Gazette started picking a Player of the Year for the entire WPIAL and City League. Here are the former winners:
2022 Ashleigh Connor, Mt. Lebanon
2021 Lizzy Groetsch, North Allegheny
2020 Lizzy Groetsch, North Allegheny
2019 Makenna Marisa, Peters Township
2018 Makenna Marisa, Peters Township
2017 Sam Breen, North Catholic
2016 Alayna Gribble, Norwin
2015 Brenna Wise, Vincentian and Chassidy Omogrosso, Blackhawk
2014 Brenna Wise, Vincentian
2013 Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, Hopewell
2012 Shatori Walker-Kimbrough, Hopewell
2011 Madison Cable, Mt. Lebanon
2010 Belma Nurkic, Baldwin
2009 Markel Walker, Schenley
2008 Alex Gensler, Upper St. Clair
2007 Jalessa Sams, New Castle
2006 Jaleesa Sams, New Castle
2005 Eve Pyle, Oakland Catholic
2004 Charel Allen, Monessen
2003 Meg Bulger, Oakland Catholic
2002 Kamela Gissendanner, Clairton
2001 Tanisha Wright, West Mifflin
2000 Tanisha Wright, West Mifflin
1999 Katie Bulger, Oakland Catholic
1998 Swin Cash, McKeesport
1997 Swin Cash, McKeesport
1996 Gina Naccarato, Monessen
1995 Shauntai Hall, Albert Gallatin
1994 Mandy West, Upper St. Clair
1993 Mandy West, Upper St. Clair
Keith Barnes: kbarnes.pg@gmail.com and Twitter @kbarnes_pghsprt
First Published: April 9, 2023, 9:30 a.m.