How this basketball player found success at 'the best kept secret in York County'

John Glass had been trying to resurrect the girls' basketball program at York County Tech for a decade when he first heard the "rumors."

It was 2019, and Spartans boys' coach Jim Collins told him there was a talented player from Red Lion who was planning to enroll at the school as a freshman. Glass could only hope the player would boost a varsity program that wasn't officially underway yet.

That player exceeded his expectations.

Rhlyn Rouse will finish her high school career this week as York County Tech's leading scorer ― for both boys and girls. She's scored 1,595 points in four varsity seasons and just recorded her 1,000th career rebound. The 6-foot forward averaged 22 points and 14 rebounds per game during that span.

Just four YAIAA girls' players (Delone's Maddie Comly, Dover's Alayah Hall, Dover's Rajah Fink and York High's Chyna Steele) have scored more points than Rouse over the past decade. And Rouse missed eight games this season with an ankle injury and a handful of games the past two seasons due to COVID.

Her accomplishments have largely gone under the radar since York Tech has only had a varsity program for the last three of those seasons after previously allowing its girls' basketball players to compete for York Country Day. The Spartans still compete as an independent team outside of the YAIAA and have gone just 20-38 in three seasons.

Still, Rouse has done more than just put up gaudy statistics for a rebuilding program. The Lock Haven commit has proven it's possible to have significant athletic success at a school not known for sports.

"She gives us exposure," said Glass. "We always say (Tech) is the best kept secret in York County because kids don't come here for athletics. But because of her and a few other people, kids see you can come here and get the educational programs you want and still get to Division II in athletics."

Rouse isn't the only student at York County Tech succeeding at sports. Anthony Torres set a school rushing record (1,933 yards) in football. Senior two-sport athlete Ethan Shimmel plans to play college baseball.

Still, Rouse has helped a program that hadn't existed for 28 years get off the ground. The Spartans have full varsity and JV rosters ― something not every girls' program in the YAIAA can say.

"We have kids that have talent," Glass said. "But not the talent she has."

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Rouse, who studies early childhood education, said the key has been acting like a typical student-athlete.

As cliche as it sounds, she considers herself a student first ― and that mindset has paved her path.

"I'm happy here," she said. "There's a lot of opportunities here with the hands-on training. It was all about the education.

"I've always been thankful to be here."

Education before basketball at York County Tech

Basketball runs in the Rouse family, but Rhlyn didn't know that growing up.

Her father played in high school in the Washington D.C. area. Her cousin, Darnell Dodson, played for Kentucky and then overseas and in the NBA D-League.

She just remembers her mother suggesting the sport to her one day in the third grade.

"I was sitting in the backseat of the car and my mom turned around and asked me if I wanted to play basketball," she said. "I was like, sure, but I didn't even know what it was."

Her twin brother, Richard, also started the sport and the pair practiced together growing up. By the end of middle school, she was playing for a local AAU team and taking the sport seriously.

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Still, she wasn't thinking about playing sports past high school at the time. But she knew she wanted to attend college and eventually work with children. An assembly at Red Lion about York County Tech caught her interest.

The school's girls' basketball program was still a co-op with York Country Day, but that wasn't a deciding factor for the Rouse family.

"What stood out was the advertisement for being career ready," her father, Richard Rouse, said. "I felt like that was a little more important than basketball. We chose (Tech) because Rhlyn was going to play wherever she was at. But the education is second to none here."

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Rouse said she came to Tech unaware that Glass and athletic director Rob Caruso had been working to reestablish the varsity girls' program for quite some time. The school hadn't had a girls' team since going winless during a one-year restart in 1993. Prior to that, the program won 11 games between 1976 and 1987.

A 1990 York Tech graduate who also coaches field hockey at the school, Glass began coaching a freshmen team at the school as a pilot program in 2011. When the school's new 2,000-seat gymnasium was completed in 2020, the school felt it had the interest and the facilities to launch a varsity girls' program.

York Country Day had 14 players from York County Tech on its roster for the 2019-20 season. One of those was Rouse, who averaged nearly 20 points and 13 rebounds as a freshman for the Class 1A program.

"They told us the last game when we were playing for York Country Day," said Rouse, who admitted it was weird wearing red-and-white uniforms while going to a school with a green-and-white scheme. "That was definitely a shock. I was just happy. I was like, 'I don't know why we didn't have this before,' but I'm really happy to be part of the first team to bring it back."

'Be on your own path'

Rouse views it as a positive form of peer "pressure."

"A lot of the freshmen, if it's back to school night and they're tall, I say: 'Do you want to play basketball? Play basketball,'" Rouse said. "Some of them came out and they're playing now."

Rouse is quiet most of the time, but Glass said she's never hesitated to help out a younger player who is still learning the game. Rouse said she'll often demonstrate her post moves in practice when teammates ask.

The Spartans are 9-12 this season but 7-6 in the games Rouse has played. She's scored just over 50% of her team's points in the games she's played. But the star player said she isn't bothered by not playing on a winning team during her career.

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Rouse, who hopes to become a pediatric speech pathologist, has enjoyed getting hands-on experience at local childcare centers. She still played AAU basketball in the offseason and found a collegiate opportunity that makes sense for her. Through the Commonwealth University partnership, Rouse will be able to attend and play for Lock Haven but take speech classes through Bloomsburg.

"I was just telling her the other day how proud I am," her father said. "There's no words ... it's more of a feeling."

Rouse said she hopes more promising athletes will think about attending York County Tech in the future.

"Just come," she said. "You can't listen to what anybody else says. I know a lot of people are like, 'does Tech even have a team?, or talking us down. That never swayed me. I would say come, don't follow everybody else and be on your own path."

Matt Allibone is a sports reporter for GameTimePA. He can be reached at 717-881-8221, mallibone@ydr.com or on Twitter at @bad2theallibone.