In twilight of her rewarding basketball career, Wildwood grad embraces new role at Stockton

Posted: December 4th 2025

Wildwood High School graduate Imene Fathi has enjoyed a productive college basketball career at Richard Stockton University.

By BRIAN CUNNIFF

CapeAtlanticLive.com

The last time Imene Fathi played a basketball game at Wildwood High School, she euphorically tossed the ball in the air as the final buzzer sounded to celebrate the Lady Warriors’ upset win in the South Jersey championship game over a Woodbury team that featured two eventual Division I college players.

She’s hoping for a similar storybook ending to her own college career.

Fathi has been a cornerstone for the Stockton University women’s basketball team over the past few years, starting 68 of a possible 74 games over the first three seasons of her career.

But the 2022 Wildwood graduate has fallen into a different role as a senior, coming off the bench for the first six games of this season for an Ospreys team that is 4-2 overall, 1-1 in the New Jersey Athletic Conference heading into Saturday’s game at William Paterson.

“Honestly, I kind of like it, actually,” Fathi said of her new role. “I never came off the bench before, but I feel like coming off the bench I get a different perspective of the game. I get to see how the pace is being played at and then I can adapt right away when I get in the game. I think it’s actually helped my game.”

IMENE FATHI

It certainly hasn’t hurt her production. Despite averaging only a tick more than 20 minutes per game so far, the 5-4 point guard is third on the Ospreys in scoring at 7.8 points per game. She has twice scored 14 points in a game, both Stockton victories. She also averages 2.2 assists per game, good for second on the team. Perhaps most importantly as a player who handles the ball quite often, Fathi has committed only seven turnovers in six games for a team that so far has had extreme trouble in that area, averaging almost 21 miscues per outing as a group.

Fathi, an honorable mention NJAC selection last season, has a chance to reach a couple of major milestones as a senior. She’s six away from 100 career three-pointers and 48 shy of 300 career assists.

Stockton had almost nothing go right in its most recent game, a 69-43 loss to a previously winless The College of New Jersey team on Wednesday. Fathi made both of her shot attempts in scoring five points and grabbed a rebound but played just six minutes in a game Stockton trailed by as many as 30 points in the second half.

Still, Fathi had nothing but good things to say about her experience at Stockton after the contest.

“I love it here,” she said. “Being close to home, my mom, my brother, my dad and sometimes my (two) sisters can just come straight up the (Garden State) Parkway to see me play. I’m very close with my family and that’s one of the reasons why I chose Stockton in the first place. I’m very thankful for my experience here.”

As one of the team’s most experienced players, Fathi has found herself in a mentoring role for the team’s younger guards trying to find their way at the college level.

“I have a very close relationship with all of them and I feel like they see me as an older sister to all of them,” she said. “I have a lot of experience at this level and I feel like I can guide them and help set them up for their upcoming years.”

On pace to graduate from Stockton in May, Fathi is a biology major who hopes to become a physician’s assistant, perhaps in the field of pediatric oncology. She’s considering Temple, Kean and Rutgers for her graduate work.

Fathi, whose parents immigrated here from Algeria nearly 25 years ago, has come a long way since she began her basketball career as a 10-year-old North Wildwood Recreation Center. 

“No one in my family ever played basketball before,” Fathi said. “I used to go to the North Wildwood Rec and I’d color or play with Legos but then I got bored with it so I started going into the gym and playing. (Her former recreation-level coach) Butch Rulon saw me playing the around-the-world game with his daughter and he asked me to play on his team. So that’s how I got into it. I’d been playing for about a year before I got on that team and my mom didn’t even know I played. When I told her I got on that team, she was like, ‘You play basketball?’”

Fathi said she grew up idolizing former area standouts Maddie McCracken (Wildwood/Stockton) and Marianna Papazoglou (Wildwood Catholic/Penn/West Chester), both of whom also started their careers in the game at the North Wildwood Recreation Center. 

There’s no doubt a younger generation of players should be looking up to Fathi, a colossal overachiever who has bled every ounce out of her God-given ability and has brought magnificent leadership to every team on which she’s played.

Fathi’s fruitful basketball career is set to end sometime shortly before or after her 22nd birthday in early March. It’ll be bittersweet.

“Yeah, this is it. My last year,” she said with a stroke of melancholy in her voice. “I’ve thought about it a lot. But I’m just grateful for all the time I’ve had playing basketball. Playing at Wildwood and then coming up here to Stockton and having the opportunity to play in college, not a lot of people can say they were able to do all that. I’m trying to take it all in.

“I’m grateful for all the relationships I’ve made. I’ve met the best friends ever because of basketball. I’ve gotten to play the game I love and I’ve made life-long friends along this journey. I couldn’t be happier.”

(Action photo courtesy Stockton University athletics.)