ATHLETE OF THE WEEK
Allie Shenloogian
Sport: Basketball
School: Park Ridge
Class: Senior. Age: 17
Accomplishment: Became the Owls’ top all-time scorer, scoring 47 points to reach 1,828 for her career as Park Ridge defeated Becton and Waldwick to win the Garfield tournament. Added 16 rebounds and eight assists as the Owls went to 5-1 on the season.
Paul Schwartz / North Jersey.com
Allie Shenloogian has a passion to improve.
She became Park Ridge’s all-time leading girls basketball scorer a year ago, passing Shannon Burns (class of 2020) who scored 1,664 points, and recently went past the combined boys and girls mark of 1,734 set by Vince Richmond, who graduated in 2008.
Sometime in the next month, she’ll become Bergen County’s 16th girl to surpass 2,000 points. She’s currently at 1,883 career points.
But she wants more.
“I always want to get better,” said Shenloogian, who has improved her mid-range game this year to complement her strong drives to the basket and deft 3-point touch.
“She’s kind of a throwback player,” coach Ryan Dennis said. “You don’t see a lot of kids who lead the team in points, rebounds, steals and assists and is also second in blocked shots. And she has great leadership on the court as she’s always talking to her teammates on the floor and trying to make them more comfortable.”
To old-time fans of Park Ridge girls basketball, she draws comparisons to Hall of Famer Karen Smith, the Owls’ first 1,000-point scorer, who went on to lead Bergen Community College to the 1977 national junior college championship and helped Montclair State College to the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women Final Four a year later.
Smith also played for the 1980 New York Stars’ championship team in the Women’s Basketball League, the precursor to today’s WNBA, and later coached at her alma mater.
“I’ve met her a few times and trained with her when I was younger,” said Shenloogian, who has signed to play hoops at the University of Hartford next year. “It’s an honor to be in the same sentence as she is.”
And like Smith, Shenloogian has been a winner. As a sophomore, she led the Owls to a Cinderella run to the 2023 sectional finals. As a junior, they won a sectional title.
“She’s continued to be highly-motivated as a senior,” Dennis said. “She’s totally dedicated to her craft. There’s no coasting with Allie.”
That’s not to say that basketball has been her only athletic endeavor at Park Ridge. Shenloogian is a four-year starter in soccer, and played two years of softball before choosing to focus on basketball in the spring. She’s even thinking about playing lacrosse this spring.
All of this with a series of nagging injuries that make it difficult sometimes to keep her right knee bent for more than a minute.
“I have some IT band problems and sometimes it blows up on me,” said Shenloogian, who wants to become a physical therapist. “That’s why I liked Hartford so much. I loved the facilities and they have a specific program to teach PT for athletes.”
The young Hawks team also needs guards and it’s likely that the 5-foot-6 Shenloogian will be a combo guard on the young squad next year.
“The best part of my game is my dribble attack and drive, and ball handling and the ability to attack at different speeds,” said Shenloogian, who says her favorite players right now are the Knicks’ Josh Hart and the Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu. “Hart’s hustle and energy is unmatched and I just love watching Sabrina play.”
And the thought of scoring 2,000 points? “I’m much more focused on winning our games and getting that No. 1 seed for sectionals,” she said. “As it gets closer, I’ll think about it, I guess.
“But I just want to get better each game and help us win another sectional title.”
