Gwenyth Merrifield '21 Recruiting Profile

Ever since I was born, basketball has been a huge part of my life. Whether it was playing in the yard, watching my father coach or watching March Madness, basketball always seemed to be around. This sport made me who I am, and I can't imagine my life without it.  Over the years, my father has coached varsity basketball. My favorite thing was being able to go with him to practice. I believe that without this sport, I wouldn't be the person I am.  Through playing this sport, I have learned that I am a strong leader in hard situations.  Even when things aren't going the way my team might want them to, I will always find a way to stay positive. 

For the rest of high school, I hope to keep striving in academics and being a leader, in the classroom and on the court. I hope to explore my future career path and learn as much as I can before going to college. I will be participating in an extended learning opportunity and learning areas of owning a small retail business from a local business owner and creating a pop-up shop. I plan to use all of my resources and learn as much as possible in order to excel. For my college career, I would like to study areas of business, retail, small business management, and business management. My goal for college is to explore areas of business and be able to open my own retail business when I am out of college. 

To get where I am today has been hard. Throughout my middle school basketball career, my team was very successful. We won almost all of our tournaments and lost very few games. I started AAU my seventh-grade year and played in the 9th and 10th-grade division, and we still saw success. As an eighth-grader, I played on four teams in total, and we didn't lose many games. So, when I was going into high school, I was excited to compete at a higher level. This high school program was struggling,  they hadn't won any games in 5 years,  so as a freshman, I became a leader and a starter. The season was very discouraging, and it was hard to continue and play AAU. The AAU season was successful though and, we qualified for the national tournament. Then sophomore season came around, we had one senior and one junior, and three sophomores returning to our varsity program and a whole new coaching staff. Right away, my coach counted on me to be a leader on this team. We went on to win 5 games and miss the playoffs by one win. Overall it was the best girls basketball season our school has seen in over 10 years. With this momentum, we went on to AAU season and we were invited to play in the Zero Gravity national tournament in Boston. Although we didn't win, the experience and competitive games made me realize how much basketball means to me. My journey has made me into a well-rounded basketball player that knows the game and loves the game and I hope to continue my journey at the college level.