Two Montini Catholic basketball standouts hit milestone moment

The 1,000 point mark is an extremely rare experience for high school basketball players, but two Montini Catholic High School Broncos have carved out their space in Montini athletic history by achieving their milestone moment – Shannon Blacher and Victoria Matulevicius.

NIU commit and senior guard forward Blacher was thrilled to sink her 1,000th point during an already special senior night game Jan. 27, a news release stated.

“It was really cool to be able to score my 1,000th point on my home court – I am so grateful to my teammates because I would have not been able to reach this point without each and every one of them sharing the ball with me and cheering me on!” she said in the release.

Blacher admits that during her freshman season she never truly thought the goal was attainable.

“I rarely scored or even went in the game during my first year of basketball,” she said. “I am so thankful to have gotten the opportunity these last two years to take on a scoring role which helped me achieve this goal.”

On Feb. 10, the two-week anniversary of Blacher’s success, junior guard forward Matulevicius made her 1,000th career point in front of a packed gymnasium at the Broncos’ Hoops for Hope game. Matulevicius was totally oblivious of her achievement, which was secured during the last few minutes of a highly intense game against Benet Academy.

“In the moment, I didn’t know I reached my 1,000th point, but when the game was over, I was surprised with screaming and cheering,” Matulevicius said in the release. It was a really great moment and I felt very special.”

Like, Blacher, she humbly credits her teammates with helping her achieve her success.

“They support me on and off the court every day, even if they don’t know it,” Matulevicius said. “I owe it to them because if I didn’t have such a loving and encouraging environment, I wouldn’t be as successful as I am.”

According to Matulevicius, entering the realm of high school basketball as a freshman is intimidating enough – and the thought of attaining 1,000 points sometime in the future never seemed attainable.

“I didn’t know 1,000 points was a possibility as a freshman, but now that I have achieved that goal, I know I can achieve many other things,” she said.

Both students most recently were honored as IHSA All Conference athletes, along with Alyssa Epps, and both are focused on taking their Broncos all the way to Redbird Arena in March.