By David Comer
This was the reward. The reward for spending all those hours shooting in an empty gym. The reward for deciding he wanted to excel in basketball and making it happen through hard work and dedication. The reward for never missing an open gym and then competing in those open gyms like he was playing for a state championship.
“It’s awesome,” Upper Dublin senior Ryan Mulroy said after scoring his 1,000th career point on Friday in a 58-44 win over Cardinal O’Hara in the opening round of the Cardinal Holiday Tournament. “Coming to Upper Dublin, it was never really a thought to score 1,000 points. I feel like, growing up, Upper Dublin wasn’t really big in basketball yet, so to be part of the changing of the culture is really special and to score 1,000 points, too, really means a lot.”
With his family and friends on hand — minus his brother and sister, who were at home sick watching the livestream of the game — Mulroy scored on a baseline layup with 3:39 left in the fourth quarter to give him 1,001 career points.