Freshman Nola Bartley has played basketball and soccer “for as long as I can remember,” she said. Bartley ended her high school soccer season in October, and just started her first year of high school basketball this December with the goal of hopefully making it to the state tournament.

This fall she played on the JV girls soccer team, and now Bartley swings for the girls basketball team, which means she plays for both JV and varsity. 

Bartley came to La Salle because many of her neighbors were going, so she decided to check the school out. “I toured this school and I really just kind of fell in love with it and loved the community feeling,” she said. It can be “tough” managing schoolwork with athletics, which “involves staying up really late and not getting the best amount of sleep,” she said.

Her favorite part of the whole basketball experience is the connections she has made. “I have just made some really great connections,” Bartley said. 

The connections and relationships are a part of  “being a team,” she said.

On Friday, December 17 the varsity girls basketball team flew to Arizona to play in the Nike Tournament of Champions against teams from around the country. The trip brought “our friendships and our team bonding up to the next level,” Bartley said. Along with the Arizona tournament, Bartley is also looking forward to home games during the regular season and tournaments to come this season.

Bartley looks up to senior varsity basketball player Mia Skoro. “I think she is such an outstanding player,” she said. During Bartley’s time on the team with Skoro, “she has made me feel so included and, you know, she’s a senior, I’m a freshman, but I think that we’ve already created this bond,” she said.

The best part about the game for Bartley is “when you have your teammates next to you jumping up and down and the gym is loud,” she said.

Playing is a “surreal feeling and it just is so fun to be a part of,” she said.

Bartley is looking forward to “our future as a team, and seeing how far we can go and how much we can progress as a team,” she said.

As an athlete, Bartley hopes to be a leader her senior year and, “someone that can take La Salle’s basketball to the next level and just continue the success in the program,” she said.