Eileen Lucas '26 Recruiting Profile

I started playing basketball when I was in 4th grade because a lot of my friends were doing it, so I thought it would be a fun time to hang out. My 4th grade team wasn't good; we lost almost every game during the regular season. However, we won our first playoff game that season which surprised many parents! What I learned from my 4th grade experience was I loved the game of basketball. The repetitive losing didn't burn out the fire that I had to want to become better and improve my game. The following year in 5th grade, I made the A team for basketball but I didn't get much playing time since I was the 4th point guard in line. This however didn't discourage me, and I kept on improving to the point where in 8th grade I was the starting point guard and rarely ever got subbed out. (I never give up!)

Entering high school there was a new-found stress of trying to balance grades and athletics. I managed it well with keeping straight A's while I still continued to improve my game. Once tryouts for basketball rolled around I was quite nervous, and I gave it my all which ended me on the JV team. I was deflated because I knew I was good enough to be on varsity, but I listened to my parents and worked super hard on JV. During my time on JV, we went 11-2, and I dominated being the starting point guard and never got subbed out during an intense game. This hard work paid off because mid-way through the season my JV coach told me that I was to practice with varsity and still play for him. I was ecstatic finally this is my chance. So I gave it my all at the varsity practices, wanting to prove myself, and I did because the varsity coach did not let me play JV anymore by the end of the season.

This mindset of me giving it my all has translated outside of basketball in things like my school work and soccer. In school, I aim for perfection and give each assignment my best which landed me with all A's and not one was an A-. Though the work wasn't easy because I was taking 4 honors classes my freshman year.

 I also play soccer which my school is extremely competitive about. Due to this I made the Freshmen team, but this didn't break my heart because I persevered and led my team to a record of 13-1-1. I was never subbed out of the game and when I was, we were beating a team by 3+. I also play club soccer for SFC. I was on the lower white team for 2 years but again, with my determination, I made it to the upper blue team. Our blue team had a great season (Spring 2023) in which we were second in the NECSL U15 top division, regional championship, and also represented Massachusetts in the US soccer Eastern Regional Championships.