Isabelle ‘seriously’ good
Teen’s 66-point game awakens love of basketball
IF North Gold Coast Seahawks junior Isabella Lightfoot played in the NBA, she would hold the equal 19th-highest score of all time.
Earlier this year playing under-16 representative basketball for the Seahawks, Lightfoot dropped 66 points against the Northside Wizards.
And for someone who didn’t take basketball seriously until last year, it came as quite a shock.
The 15-year-old started playing club basketball fourand-a-half years ago before getting the call-up for representative duties last year.
“It was a growing process for me and it was only last year I realised basketball was something I wanted to put a lot more time into,” Lightfoot said.
“It’s an outlet for me and you can forget about everything else except playing.
“Last year, the rep coach came and asked me If I would be interested playing for the
Seahawks and I never really took basketball seriously, but it changed everything.”
Lightfoot doesn’t remember much from her Herculean effort. In fact, she didn’t even realise she was nearing 50 points.
“I had no clue until my coach yelled out, ‘you’re on 47 points, shoot a three’, because he wanted me to hit 50 points, so I did and the rest was a blur,” she said.
“Sometimes I can get a bit distracted during games but I was just so focused on the game.
“Our team just knew exactly what passes we needed to make and our defence was great.
“After that, I started getting noticed a bit more, which gave me a lot of confidence.”
Fresh off representing Southport State High School at the Champion Basketball Schools Queensland tournament, Lightfoot will now turn her focus to the Seahawks once more as they aim for more success at the under-16 state championships.
Originally established as a development side that struggled for numbers, the Seahawks went on a seven-game winning streak under new coach Marko Savic.
“This year has been about developing our skills so now we want to show how much we have improved,” Lightfoot said.
The Gold Coast Bulletin
will be live streaming just less than 50 games from the under-16 state championships.