By Christopher Tremblay

Like many young kids, Ava Mourad watched her father coach her older sister in basketball, and eventually he was coaching her on the court as well. In addition to playing basketball in Norwood, Mourad would also sport soccer and softball uniforms for the town while growing up. 

Playing basketball, Mourad not only found that she loved the sport but loved the girls she was playing it with. It wasn’t until middle school when she began branching out and began playing AAU Basketball that she realized that she had a talent for the game. 

 

“I was surrounded by a lot of talent and I was just as good as they were,” Mourad recalled. 

Her AAU Coach had her playing either point guard or a shooting guard during those days and Mourad quickly came to love the shooting guard position as she felt that she was a decent shooter. She would occasionally, however, be asked to bring the ball up the court.

When it came time to go to high school, Mourad was enrolled at Bishop Feehan in Attleboro. Here she would sharpen her basketball skills with the rest of the team, and although she was okay with her first two seasons at Feehan, she wanted to finish up her high school career playing for her home town.

“I loved Bishop Feehan; I made some of my best friends there, but I wanted to be closer to home and play with the girls that I grew up with in my town,” Mourad said. “I was just more comfortable playing at Norwood.”

According to Mourad, Bishop Feehan had a competitive girls basketball team with skill levels that rant very deep. Although she did get to play on the varsity team during her sophomore campaign where she learned a lot about the game, she felt that she belonged back in Norwood. 

Coming back to play in her hometown, the then junior quickly got involved in summer basketball leagues and played a lot of pickup basketball with her friends before entering Norwood High School during her junior year.

“Norwood tryouts went just as expected,” Mourad said. “I knew a lot of the girls and was very confident with my game. Bishop Feehan focused a lot on communication on the court. As a freshman, you tend to be quiet and don’t speak up, but there you were pushed to talk and that has definitely helped me here, especially now that I am a captain.”

Mustang Coach Kristen McDonnell had Mourad in her starting lineup right away and she found that the junior made an immediate impact. This year, Mourad is one of the team’s leading scorers and the squad moves to her beat.

“Ava is a class-act kid and very fierce on the court,” the Norwood coach said. “She leads us on defense and usually guards the toughest person on the other team. She was voted by her teammates unanimously as a co-captain for this year’s team, which says a lot since she has only played one season with us.”

McDonnell went on to say that Mourad rarely comes off the floor and is continuously working on her game three days a week before school starts. In her first season with the Mustangs, McDonnell wanted her to shoot more, but instead the then junior would attack the basket. Teams would eventually start to learn her tendencies and waited for her to commit. This year, she has become a sharp shooter which gives the rest of the team the ability to attack the basket when needed. 

When Bishop Feehan made it to the State Tournament, Mourad did not see any minutes on the court, so when Norwood qualified for the Division 2 Tournament last year, she was very excited about playing in post regular season rounds. 

Norwood received a nine seed in the tournament last year and would make their way into the Elite 8 where they would eventually fall to number one seed Medfield. This year, she is hoping for another deep season.

“I would love to see this team make a deep run through the state tournament,” Mourad said. “We are currently ranked second in the state, but we feel that we really haven’t reached our full potential.”

Individually, the senior is hoping that she can be the best leader that she can be, especially as the only senior that will see court time (the other senior co-captain is injured). She wants to be aggressive and teach the young talent to step up their game.

When Mourad was a freshman at Bishop Feehan two years ago, Norwood took their season all the way to the Division 2 State Championship game where they would be denied by Oliver Ames. While she was not a part of that Norwood team, she would love to get this year’s team back to the championship game and win it for her town.

When high school is over, Mourad plans to go to college, but basketball will not be part of her future. She would like to attend a big school (unsure of where at this point) but wants to focus on her education.

“I will definitely miss playing basketball,” she said. “But I realized that I love playing for my hometown program with a great coach and all my friends; that’s all I need and it’s a great way to go out.”