‘She’d be proud of me now:’ Samuel Fels’ Senaya Parker, the Public League scoring leader, inspired by her late grandmother

Senaya Parker usually could tell the score of a Sixers game by what her grandmother was yelling from her bedroom.

At the very least, Parker, now a sophomore averaging more than 40 points for Samuel Fels High School, could tell if Joel Embiid was sticking to her grandmother’s script.

“Yo, get in the paint!” was a familiar phrase when the Sixers 7-footer strayed too far for Ruby Parker’s comfort.

After her grandmother died in 2021, Senaya Parker wondered if the game they loved would ever comfort her again.

“I didn’t know if I wanted to do anything,” Parker said before a recent practice.

Now, basketball seems like one way to keep her grandmother close.

“She’s my why,” Parker said.

» READ MORE: Basketball and family are intertwined for Abington’s Cire Worley, a UMass Lowell recruit

The 16-year-old leads the Public League in scoring and is a candidate for the league MVP.

Parker knows some question her point totals and the level of competition they were tallied against. She also acknowledges that she played against tougher teams last season coming off the bench for Pub champ Imhotep Charter.

Parker also knows she still needs to improve, especially as the Pub playoffs begin and Fels faces better teams. After scoring all 56 points in a 56-30 second-round win over Tacony Charter, Fels will take on Audenreid on Wednesday.

Her motivation, however, remains the same.

“I wanted her to see me do all of this, but I know she’s watching from above,” Parker said of her grandmother, who died from complications related to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. “Not having her here, I just know I have to make her proud.”

Stanley Parker still remembers when his daughter refused to back down to her older brothers. She was about 5 years old.

If she wanted something, she learned she might need to scrap for it if she wanted it badly enough.

“I just noticed she had passion, aggressiveness, and competitiveness for no matter what it was,” said Stanley Parker, 41.

Those traits probably are the only way you can go from not being able to make a layup two years ago to averaging 43 points this season.

“I have video of every time she played [two years ago],” Stanley Parker said. “She would bang the ball off the backboard. If y’all was to look at that and look at her now, you’d be like, ‘That’s not the same kid.’”

Hard work motivated by her grandmother’s death has helped Parker score 50-plus points seven times this season, including 59 of her team’s 64 last month against Hill Freedman World Academy and 54 of Fels’ 59 against Simon Gratz.

“I think a lot of what she’s doing now is because she wants to make her grandma proud,” her dad said. “My mom saw the toughness and the backyard brawls with the brothers, but she never saw the 30, 40, and 50 points.”

She also didn’t see Parker become a leader. Parker knew playing at Fels (13-2-1, 8-0) could mean having inexperienced teammates.

Before the season began, she talked to her coach, Malvin Carrion.

“The reality is she’s way more talented than everybody else here,” Carrion said, “but she’s fit in very nicely. She’s even taken on a leadership role.”

In Wednesday’s 54-25 opening-round playoff win against visiting MAST Charter II, Parker finished with 32 points. She added five assists, six steals, and was frequently observed encouraging teammates and even opponents.

» READ MORE: ‘It’s a show:’ Meet Kiyomi McMiller, a top 2024 recruit with lofty goals

This season, however, hasn’t come without difficulties.

In December, Parker missed two free throws that would have tied the game with four seconds left against Penn Treaty.

The loss hit her hard, but didn’t weaken her resolve.

“I felt like I let my team down,” said Parker, who scored 48 points that game.

Carrion, now in his seventh season at Fels, said Parker was practically glued to the foul line at their next practice.

Tempering her tenacity has been another challenge. Parker has fouled out several times, leaving her team’s offense searching for answers.

It’s usually the result of reaching for steals, she said.

“Sometimes I just get too hungry, and I need to chill, simmer down,” she said with a smile. “Sometimes I just see the ball, and I want it.”

That’s a far cry from the girl who described herself as “timid” last season at Imhotep.

Some Division III colleges have expressed interest thus far, but Carrion believes Parker is a Division I player. Her dream, though she admits she has much to improve upon first, is to play for Dawn Staley at South Carolina.

Her grandmother likely would be proud, no matter which college Parker eventually plays for.

“She would always tell me she was proud of me,” Parker said, “but I didn’t [accomplish] as much as I have now. So I know if she was proud of me then, she’d be proud of me now.”