Shaughnessy Wins A Shot For Life

New England Recruiting Report | Monday, August 7th, 2017

Thomas Shaughnessy 2018

The fifth annual A Shot For Life Challenge took place this weekend in Hanover, Massachusetts and raised over $30,000 for cancer research.

The event is a two hour shooting competition where the winner is named “The Best Shooter in Massachusetts” and gets their number retired on the wall of the A Shot For Life Court at the University Sports Complex, which hosts the event every year.

The ASFL Family program is unique because it is a talent based charity program. The field was loaded with scholarship talent headlined by recent Division 1 commits Thomas Shaughnessy, Ethan Wright, Calvin Whipple, Carl Pierre, and more.

Each of the players made the commitment to take time out of their hectic summer schedules to raise money for cancer research, which speaks volumes about their character off the floor.

The two hour shooting competition is broken down by segments of different shots. The first twenty minutes are for free throws, the second twenty minutes are for mid-range jump-shots, the third twenty minutes are for three-pointers. There’s a ten minute halftime. Then the first thirty minutes of the second hour are for mid-range jump-shots and the final thirty minutes are for threes.

Thomas Shaughnessy, the recent Brown commit, took home the title in the boys division shooting a scorching 91.56% through the two hour event. Thomas had a great summer for the Middlesex Magic AAU program hitting multiple game winning shots and will now look to lead Needham High School on a deep playoff run this winter in the MIAA.

Emma Forbes won the title as “The Best Shooter in Massachusetts” for the girls’ division. Emma has been a part of the ASFL Family program since she was a freshman, one of the only players in ASFL history to be picked as a freshman. Emma has had a multitude of serious knee injuries in the last four years and on Saturday she won the A Shot For Life Challenge by shooting 81.8% over the two hour period while needing surgery on her ACL. She will go in for her third ACL surgery this week. Emma is taking a gap year and will attend Harvard in the fall of 2018.

“I’m happy for Emma and Thomas, they won over an incredibly talented field, but these are all our players and I’m so proud of all of them,” said ASFL CEO Mike Slonina. “These players are following the lineage of Kellan Grady, Brandon Twitty, Isaiah McLeod, Ashley Russell, Bridget and Brianna Herlihy, and all of the other players that came before them in our program. This is a special program and I’m so proud to have every single one of these players as a part of this for the rest of their lives.”

The 2017 ASFL Family Roster: Thomas Shaughnessy, Ethan Wright, Noah Fernandes, Jordan Mello-Klein, Calvin Whipple, Travis Evee, Kyle Murphy, Brendan Hoban, Tyler Aronson, Colin McNamara, Nick Timberlake, Matt Shaker, Carl Pierre, Ulyen Coleman, Emma Forbes, Sydney Scales, Ashley Sampson, Keelah Dixon, Annabelle Larnard, Marissa Gattuso, Marissa Fontaine, Maddie Murphy, Stephanie Lyons, Maddie Mullin, Kaylin Reen, Emma Squires, Jenna Roche, Kendall Currence, & Cassie Caldwell.