Thomas Jefferson’s Maggie Spell commits to Campbell

By: Liam Belan
Thursday, July 31, 2025 | 3:41 PM

Thomas Jefferson’s Maggie Spell had been in talks with different college basketball programs when she went with her Western PA Bruins AAU team to the Under Armour Association Finals from July 18-21.

After her performance at the tournament, she received a call from Campbell coach Ronny Fisher telling her that he wanted to fly her out for a visit the next day. That went in the books as her first official visit to the campus in Buies Creek, N.C., and that was all it took for Spell to announce her commitment to play for the Division I Campbell Camels after her upcoming senior year of high school.

“When I got there, I just felt like I was at home,” Spell said. “I loved the girls, I loved the coaches, and the atmosphere just felt great. I had been talking to them for a while, and it felt great to make this decision.”

Spell has been a top player in the WPIAL since she entered high school at Shady Side Academy. As a sophomore, she propelled the school to its first WPIAL championship, scoring a game-high 31 points in a 52-45 victory over Avonworth at the Petersen Events Center. Last season, her first in her home district with the Jaguars, she helped lead TJ to the WPIAL semifinals and the second round of the state playoffs with her three-level scoring and tenacity on the defensive end.

Working under TJ coach Matt Gould’s watch for almost two years now, he found it to be no surprise that she was able to commit to play at a high level mid-major program in Division I basketball.

“The quantity and the quality of her work has gotten her to this point,” Gould said. “She’s a tireless worker, she’s a gym rat, and she’s always working on her game. She goes to Maximum Hoops (a player development organization in Pittsburgh), she plays for the Bruins, and she does everything we ask of her. It’s a full buy-in to the basketball lifestyle.”

Spell is committed to a program that was just one game short of an NCAA Tournament berth out of the Coastal Athletic Association after falling to William and Mary, 66-63, in the conference championship game this past season. The Camels won a game in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament, a 57-55 result at Coastal Carolina, before falling to Southern Indiana in the second round.

The team is also used to having a WPIAL standout on the court. Former Trinity High School and Western PA Bruins star Courtney Dahlquist was the squad’s second-leading scorer as a senior last season.

The Jaguars will still have Spell for one more season before she’s off to school, though, and the team’s expectations haven’t been higher if you ask her and her coach.

Coming off runs in the district and state playoffs, TJ isn’t losing a single player and added about 10 freshmen while other top finishers in Class 5A lost contributors to graduation.

“She’s already different in the practice setting with it being her last year,” Gould said. “She’s more comfortable and being more of the leader that she’s wanted to be. I don’t care what grade you’re in or how good you are, you’re not going to roll back into a school and then have people suddenly follow you. It doesn’t work like that, but now she’s earned that. You can tell she’s setting a tone with the younger players.

“These girls like Maggie and Riley (McCabe), along with the juniors that play high-level AAU, they’ve been around a lot of basketball games in their careers so far. Not just the ones that have been with us, Maggie and Kaylee (DeAngelo) have been in big games in their careers before last season when we were in important games during a huge season. I think they proved to themselves that they can be a championship program last year, and I think that’s the mentality that they’ll start with this year.”

“We’re definitely going for that WPIAL,” Spell said. “Sections come first, which would be amazing to win, and then we have to get that WPIAL championship for my last year.”

Regardless of whether the Jaguars can meet their lofty goals next winter, Spell now knows where home will be after high school. With that, Gould commended the maturity of his young guard for navigating what can be an increasingly difficult process in terms of finding the right fit and maintaining relationships with adults across the country.

“It’s both a very exciting and very cumbersome process for a 17-year old girl to undertake,” he said. “You’re still a kid trying to deal with adults and make a major life decision, so I think that can be pretty stressful. I always wondered why people wanted to commit early, and now I kind of get it.”

He’s confident that Spell will go on to succeed at Campbell, where she plans to pursue the university’s accelerated program to earn a bachelor’s degree in sport management and a master’s in business administration. Citing an interest in business and a love of sports, she’s excited about the possibilities that both degrees will open up for her in the future.

But before then, Spell will have one last ride as a Jaguar.

Tags: Thomas Jefferson