The Spire

Aiden Konold ’26

Chief Sports Editor

The Holy Cross women’s basketball team had just beaten Lafayette, 53-44, on a cloudy, 39-degree night in Easton, Pa. The Leopards’ loss dropped them to 9-17 and 5-10 in the Patriot League. But with 8:50 to play in the fourth quarter, senior guard Kaitlyn Flanagan knocked down a pull-up jump shot from the left elbow to put the Crusaders up 45-31. Until then, it seemed like a rather insignificant night, but Flanagan’s third bucket of the game landed her in the 1,000 career point club. 

After the game, once Flanagan boarded the team bus, she read through a slew of texts on her phone following her latest accomplishment. 

“I’m so proud of you!” read one of the texts, from high school teammate Jordyn Thomas.

Flanagan has received similar texts from former teammates, friends, and coaches over the course of her four-year career at Holy Cross. Even after former Holy Cross women’s basketball head coach, Maureen Magarity, moved to Burlington, Vt. her oldest daughter, Charlotte, continued texting Flanagan, especially in the leadup to the 2026 NCAA Tournament. 

“We miss you guys, we miss being around the team,” Charlotte would text Flanagan. 

The first thing Flanagan always texts her former coach back is, “How are the girls?”

“Those types of texts that I get back from her make my week,” Magarity said. 

For a player with a never-ending list of accolades attached to her bio on the Holy Cross Athletics website, Flanagan has never lost sight of the people around her. 

“If she did nothing on the basketball court, she would still [have] an incredible impact on the team,” Holy Cross women’s basketball assistant coach, Kat Fogarty, said.

That’s because for Flanagan, the personal accolades don’t mean much. The “it” factor Flanagan possesses transcends her 1,000+ career points or 500+ career assists. 

Ten days after joining the 1,000 point club, Flanagan set a new record when she started in her 126th game as a Crusader. By the time Flanagan’s Holy Cross basketball career ended, she had started 131 games. 

But her greatest impact is her dependability as a person off the court. 

“She will always be there for you. She’s not going to forget about a friendship or forget about anything important to you,” said Fiona Gooneratne, one of Flanagan’s high school teammates. “She is always showing up for me.” 

Gooneratne met Flanagan for the first time at a parkour party back in kindergarten.

“I always knew that [the] goofball side of her was in there,” Gooneratne said. “That’s the part that I first was like, ‘Oh my gosh, we have to be friends.’ ” 

In high school, Gooneratne chose to play basketball because it gave her more time to spend with Flanagan. 

During their time together at Plymouth-Whitemarsh (PW) High School, Gooneratne and Flanagan traveled to Delaware over winter break to play in the Diamond State Classic.

In Flanagan and Gooneratne’s senior year, one of PW’s starters couldn’t play, so Gooneratne, who typically came off the bench, was forced into action. Gooneratne had a pit in her stomach when she found out that she would start, but by the time the game ended, she did what she needed to do to help secure the Colonials’ win. 

Twice, Flanagan earned MVP honors. After her second MVP during her senior year, Flanagan handed the trophy to Gooneratne. 

“I definitely didn’t need it,” Gooneratne said. “But I think it just goes to show she’s always thinking about other people, being a great leader, and just always making sure people feel seen and appreciated.” 

On AAU road trips, Flanagan’s teammates flocked to her. 

“Flan was just somebody you always wanted around,” AAU Comets teammate Maggie Doogan said. “She just makes every situation around her 10 times better.”

In Flanagan’s last practice with the Comets, she showed up in a Yoshi costume and challenged her teammates and coaches to ninja, a game in which players trade turns trying to “eliminate” their opponents’ limbs through karate chops. 

“We were such a close-knit group, and Flan had a very big part to play in that, ” said AAU teammate, Maeve McErlane. “Some of us are wearing pajama pants, maybe a wig, maybe a scarf. So not anything too crazy. But then we see Flan pull up in a Yoshi costume from Mario Kart.” 

***

Back in 2017, PW girls’ basketball head coach, Dan Dougherty had a problem. A good one albeit, but a problem nonetheless. Dougherty needed someone to guard the team’s senior Taylor O’Brien, who went on to play college basketball at Bucknell and Florida State. In practice, O’Brien scored with ease. 

So, Dougherty turned to Flanagan, an eighth grader at the time. 

“Kate, as an eighth grader, was the only kid who could guard her at practice,” said PW assistant coach, TJ Delucia. “Taylor was so good. So we used Kate as a middle schooler to guard this 2,000-point senior scorer, and we saw it right away, even as an eighth grader, like, ‘Oh, this kid’s gonna be special.’ ” 

Years later, Flanagan remembers her battles with O’Brien a bit more skeptically than her coaches and teammates. 

“I definitely tried to guard her,” Flanagan said with a laugh. “Maybe my coaches have a different memory of how that went.” 

O’Brien, though, agreed with the coaches. 

“She did a great job, honestly, because I remember I was able to score pretty easily in high school,” O’Brien said. “But it was really hard to play against her because she was so intense and aggressive.” 

For Flanagan, slowing down O’Brien was less about playing time and more about mentality. 

Eighth graders rarely made the PW Varsity team. In fact, Flanagan never played in any PW games as an eighth grader. Without that pressure, she could focus on what the team needed. 

“That’s putting the team above yourself,” Flanagan said. “And I think that is what great teams run on.” 

At times, Flanagan’s high school coaches worried that she put the team above herself too much. She often passed up open shots in exchange for assisting her teammates.  

“We absolutely wanted her to shoot more. We wanted her to be more selfish,” Delucia said. “In high school, it wasn’t in her nature.” 

Opponents started to gameplan for this, but later paid for it. 

In the final minute of a game against Methacton during Flanagan’s freshman year, she came off a screen and the opponents left her wide open. 

Flanagan, a film junkie, recognized the set, crossed over and hit the game-winning three-pointer in the must-win game to keep her team’s playoff hopes alive. 

“She wasn’t a scorer as a freshman. That wasn’t the play call, but boom, she saw the coverage,” Delucia said. “She knew how to attack it.”

“It was the first time for her, for that group, that they really realized just what a special, multi-talented kid she was,” Dougherty said. “To be able to lead us in a game like that, to a win that propelled us into the state tournament, laid the groundwork for what we were able to accomplish during her career.” 

But not every game ended with game-winners. 

In one particular PW game, Flanagan missed free throws, which almost cost her team the game.

Later that night, Flanagan texted Dougherty, “Coach, can I come in early tomorrow to shoot?” 

“Yeah, sometimes you have off games, it’s okay,” Dougherty texted back. 

The next day, a Saturday, Flanagan arrived almost two hours early to get shots up before the 9:30 a.m. practice.

“Our next game was against a team that we were probably about to beat by 50 points,” Dougherty said. “But that’s just the kind of kid she was. It wasn’t as though she was pursuing perfection, it was more she felt like she let her team down by not being able to make a couple of free throws in any game.” 

***

Over the summer between her junior and senior years at PW, Flanagan tore the ligaments in her ankle. 

The injury kept Flanagan, a multi-sport athlete who was an all-league center back on the PW soccer team, from playing her senior season on the pitch. 

Flanagan used her injury as an opportunity to develop her voice, coaching the PW defensive unit. 

“To be on the sidelines, that was tough, but I don’t know if you’d know it,” said Flanagan’s mother, Lea. “She definitely just embraced that new role, but I know she wanted to play.” 

A few months later, after Flanagan recovered from her ankle injury, former Holy Cross assistant coaches Clare Fitzpatrick and John McCray traveled to Hershey, Pa. Flanagan had already committed to Holy Cross, but Fitzpatrick and McCray wanted to watch her compete for a PIAA 6A state title. 

Flanagan scored only two points en route to the 60-40 state title win over Mt. Lebanon, but still earned MVP honors. 

“It was the most impactful game I’ve ever seen somebody play, only scoring two points,” McCray said. “That was the moment where I just knew, like, ‘Okay, she’s really gonna come in and make a major impact.’ That was the moment where you could see, ‘Okay, this was a really, really good get. This kid’s gonna have a really, really good career at Holy Cross.’ ” 

Flanagan also tallied seven assists and a handful of steals to go along with four rebounds and a block. 

“Some people say, ‘I don’t care if I score two points and we win,’ but deep down, you know they care,” said current Holy Cross women’s basketball head coach, Candice Green. “She’s somebody that’s like, ‘No, I don’t care. I only want to win.’ ” 

***

The Crusaders hosted Boston University for the Patriot League Championship on St. Patrick’s Day in 2024, Flanagan’s sophomore year.

To honor native Irish teammate, Bronagh Power-Cassidy, Holy Cross played Gaelic Storm’s “Tell Me Ma.” In the middle of the song, Flanagan, who did Irish dance for eight years before fracturing the growth plates in both of her feet in the seventh grade, jumped into the center of her teammates and began stepdancing better than anyone in the room. 

“She’s definitely a weirdo, and people don’t see that side of her, but that’s why I love her,” Holy Cross Senior Forward Meg Cahalan said. 

When asked to name what stands out most about Flanagan, coaches are more likely to remember her good-natured personality than any one specific game. 

“There’s not a kid that I’ve coached that I have such a love and respect and appreciation for than Kaitlyn,” Fitzpatrick said. “So, as much as all that she’s done at Holy Cross like the points, the assists, being in the top five, she’s all over the record books, but the person that Kaitlyn is is the impact that she’s had.” 

When the Crusaders traveled to Ireland following Flanagan’s freshman year, they took a bus all over the countryside. Former Holy Cross head coach Maureen Magarity’s youngest daughter, Caroline, followed Flanagan around everywhere, basically living in her shadow for the week that they were there. 

Magarity kept telling Caroline to come to the front of the bus to sit with “mom,” grandma, or Charlotte. 

“Coach, it’s okay!” Flanagan responded. “Let her sit with me!” 

“She’s just such an energy giver, and she’s so consistent and I’m sure she had a lot of bad days, but she didn’t bring it to the court, she didn’t bring it to her team,” Magarity said. “She was always lifting everybody up.” 

On road trip flights at Holy Cross, Flanagan always sat next to assistant coach, Kat Fogarty. 

“I hate flying, I hate flying so much. It scares me. I don’t like it,” Fogarty said. “And Flanny volunteered to be the person that sat next to me on planes. So she sat next to me for every single plane ride her entire career at Holy Cross.” 

Like most things Flanny does, the conversations she had with Fogarty during those plane rides transcended basketball. While Coach Green egged Fogarty on, joking about any small noise, Flanagan talked to her about life and school, putting her coach at ease. 

“Such a small thing, she probably thought it was, but it meant a big deal to me,” Fogarty said. “I don’t know if she knows how much that helped me get through the travel aspect of the game.” 

Last season, when senior guard Simone Foreman tore the posterior cruciate ligament in her right knee, Flanagan texted her almost daily to make sure she was okay. 

“She’s just always there,” Foreman said. “She’s always making sure you’re okay, always making sure you’re good.”

This year, in returning to the lineup consistently, Foreman faced more of a mental battle. At one point in January, she walked out of a practice early. 

“Mentally, it was really hard getting back in the game for me,” Foreman said. “January was a really hard month.” 

Flanagan was the first person to text Foreman after that practice. 

“Hey, let’s get food,” Flanagan texted Foreman.

Flanagan drove Foreman to Chick-Fil-A, where they talked for two hours. 

“I literally came back the next day ready to play basketball,” Foreman said. 

This past season, Flanagan, an English major and education minor, taught 10th-grade English under Maria Foley at Claremont Academy in Worcester as part of the Teacher Education Program (TEP) at Holy Cross in addition to her commitments as a Division I basketball player. 

Twice, Flanagan went straight to Claremont after 6 a.m. practices. Most days, Flanagan arrived at Claremont around 7:30 a.m., taught until 2:30 p.m. and then returned to Holy Cross to practice and lift. 

“There were obviously days where I’m showing up to practice, I’m so stressed, I’m drained, and having my teammates there to pick me up, it just makes it that much easier,” Flanagan said. “And then vice versa, basketball is a struggle, or we lost this game, I’m overthinking this, then I have to show up the next morning for those kids and be the best that I can, and their energy and their humor and their joy, I have no choice but to mirror that.” 

In addition to student teaching at Claremont, Flanagan also volunteered at Abby’s House and Big Brothers Big Sisters. 

“It’s a fulfilling thing for me. Sure, I’m giving my time to other people, but I also feel like I’m filling my own cup in a way through that,” Flanagan said. “I don’t necessarily think about it in an, ‘Oh, I have to do this, or I’m doing this for them.’ 

“On the toughest days, even being able to go and teach or hang out with Caroline and Charlotte on the bus, whatever it is, those are the kind of moments where it’s like, ‘Oh, I’m being present and I don’t have to think about basketball.’ ” 

At a spring practice, Flanagan, now a departing senior, still stepped in because there weren’t enough players. 

“It’s always fun to be able to do that, and help out where I can while I’m still here. I’ll help out however I can,” Flanagan said. “I hopped into pick up, mainly, but practice, if they need me for practice, I’ll be there, too.” 

After each season, the Holy Cross coaching staff asks every player to name a teammate who has positively impacted them. This year, each player only wrote down one name: “Flanny.” 

“Sometimes I’m like, ‘God, like, how is she real?’ At 45, if I could be the fraction of the person that Flanny is, that’d be amazing,” Magarity said. “That would be saying something. She’s just a special human.” 

More than any trophy or any basket, that’s how she wants to be remembered. 

“I hope for a lot of things, primarily [that teammates] remember me for how I made them feel as a human being,” Flanagan said. “Even as a coach, [during] my time here, how did I impact you just on a day-to-day, baseline, personal relationship [level]?” 

When Flanagan walks across that stage at graduation later this week with her diploma in hand, the coaching staff understands they’ll be saying goodbye to a person who doesn’t come around every four years. 

“I don’t know if another Flanny will ever come through here,” Fogarty said. “She’s a different kind of person.”

Featured images courtesy of Lea Flanagan