As she makes her first basket on the team, little did she know that three years later, her dedication to the sport she loves would add up to a remarkable milestone.

Skye O’Rourke, a junior and varsity basketball player, hit the 1,000 point mark in November. This marks a very important milestone in O’Rourke’s basketball career, and one that proves just how deep her work ethic and love for the sport goes.

“Basketball is really important to me,” O’Rourke said. “It’s just a fun thing I can do to work out, I get to meet new friends, I get to have a team. And basketball just as a sport is really fun. It’s competitive and you learn a lot about yourself on and off the court.”

The beginning of her basketball days were spent alongside her father, who coached Skye’s first team when she was in the first grade.

“When I started playing basketball, my dad coached my team so it was a lot of fun just to start off playing a sport that my dad also played when he was younger and in college,” O’Rourke said. “As I’ve grown up, I’ve started to really take a love for it and I decided to really focus on basketball as my main sport and I’ve developed my skills ever since.”

When her freshman year came around, O’Rourke was ready to put those nine years of experience to the test by trying out for the varsity team. She earned a spot and started accumulating  points that fall.

“It’s very difficult because the points only start counting if you’re on varsity and I worked really hard to make varsity as a freshman,” O’Rourke said. “So that gave me four years to try and get to 1,000 points.  A lot of people are not on varsity for that many years so it’s very, very hard for them to hit that mark.”

However, this year, O’Rourke had another challenge to overcome: impressing a new coach. And she succeeded.

“She plays extremely hard,” coach Marlee Webb said. “She plays like every possession matters. I think that that separates her because she really pays attention to details.”

Webb met O’Rourke in person for the first time this summer. Since then, she’s noted many admirable things about O’Rourke alongside her basketball skills.

“I think overall, everything I’ve encountered with her is that she’s a very good, young lady first-and-foremost,” Webb said. “It’s not just about basketball. She does things on and off the floor to benefit others as well.”

And with O’Rourke’s position as a captain on the team, her skills as a player and leader are demonstrated often.

“She is a captain as well this year, and she’s just been real vital to putting in a new program as well as to hopefully being successful this year,” Webb said. “She has a real will to win and succeed. You can see that in how she plays.”

Overall, O’Rourke’s accomplishments from her freshman year until now have not gone unnoticed by the people who know her.

“[She puts] in a lot of work and a lot of extra time on [her] own,” Webb said. “I think that will to succeed has to be pretty strong and then she had to be pretty accepting to a new coach, a new type of program and she’s done that as well.”

With the goal to continue playing basketball in college and an offer from the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor, O’Rourke plans to keep her love of basketball with her for a while.

“I do want to play basketball in college,” O’Rourke said. “I’m hoping to get more [offers] and just to see what God has in store for me and where this sport can take me.”