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Dan Chase's road to 1,000 points has been a three-school, five-year journey. With the individual milestone out of the way, the Greens Farms Academy senior from Weston hopes he can now help the Dragons reach critical team goals the rest of the season.
The 6-foot, 3-inch senior guard hit 1,000 on the button by scoring 24 points in a 60-52 loss to Hamden Hall last week. Chase transferred to GFA this year after playing the two previous seasons at Hamden Hall. Chase started at Weston High School, where he played as a freshman and a sophomore. He repeated his sophomore year at Hamden Hall. Points accumulated during his freshman year are not included in his point total.
"It's a huge benchmark, and I'm happy I got it,'' Chase said. "It was a huge goal, but it wasn't something I was consciously thinking about. It came as a byproduct of playing hard and doing what I could for the team."
Chase is a critical component of GFA's squad. As the team's shooting guard, he'll need to hit perimeter shots when teams collapse on 6-foot, 9-inch sophomore center Sean Obi. GFA is 2-3 on the young season as the players learn to work together. "We have a lot of new pieces,'' Chase said. "We want to see how far we can take this. I think we have all the pieces necessary to go all the way."
Chase said he made the hard decision to leave Weston and the guys he played with while growing up. But he said one advantage of a private school is that he can work year-round with his coach. Chase's work has paid off in one other respect, too. He will play Division III basketball next year at Bowdoin in Maine.
Chase and the Dragons resume their season Jan. 5 against Rye Country Day, which the Dragons lost to on Dec. 10. "In each of our losses, we've come out slow,'' Dan said. "We have to get started earlier. We've dominated in the second half in a lot of our games. If we acclimated more quickly, I think we can go really far."
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