The Sunlake girl’s basketball team is crushing the competition this year! Junior Catherine Carey of the varsity team has “been playing since third grade,” and has “always been a competitive person, so I tried many sports, but when I joined my first basketball team I knew it was the sport for me.” She has even bigger plans than basketball in the future, though, saying she wants “to go into a field involved with psychology” for her career.

Catie’s favorite part of her perfect game “is the bonds that are created over a shared love for the sport. It gives a sense of family and unity while we all get to play the sport we love.” The girls on the team are all thick as thieves: before every game, “we all link arms and say a prayer for our team and the game.”

As for the aftermath of the game, they “celebrate our wins by congratulating one another and debriefing on why we did so well and what we can work on.” On the flip side, they “handle our losses with a level head and evaluate why we lost and what we can do to prevent that in our next game.”

Basketball has been a valuable experience for Catie, helping her to learn and grow as a person. If she could tell her younger self one thing when she started playing, it would be that “confidence is an important aspect of the game. Even if you have to fake it ’til you make it!”