Girls' basketball: Whitman rising senior Abby Meyers picks Princeton – Washington Post
(Joey LoMonaco/For The Washington Post)
Abby Meyers talked it over with her parents and realized she didn’t want to wait another two or three weeks to make her decision final.
So early Thursday morning, the Whitman rising senior drove to the River Falls Community Center, sat by the basketball court and made the call to Princeton Coach Courtney Banghart.
It was a fitting place for Meyers to declare the next step of her athletic career and verbally commit to the Ivy League school. The All-Met guard grew up playing sports at the Potomac park and it has become her basketball sanctuary. Before she could drive, she would dribble to the court, or bike with one hand on the handlebar and the other holding the basketball. Some days she gets up at 6 a.m. to play, and at nights she practices using the lights from a parked car.
“That’s just symbolic, because that’s where the whole process really started,” said Meyers, who led the Vikings to the 2016 Maryland 4A state title. “That’s where I developed my skills, my passion for the game.”
Meyers, a versatile 5-foot-9 guard, burst onto the scene at Whitman, averaging about nine points per game as a freshman. College offers started coming in after her sophomore season. By her junior year the list grew so large she had to narrow it.
Meyers didn’t anticipate getting this much attention from recruiters. College basketball wasn’t even on her radar until her freshman season, when Whitman Coach Pete Kenah met with Meyers and her parents after a practice and told them she had the talent to play Division I.
A two-time Maryland 4A state champion soccer player, Meyers started to focus more on basketball after that season. She joined an AAU team and began playing competitively year-round. She spent hours watching film and YouTube videos of her favorite players, practicing their moves at the park and then showing them off in games.
As a sophomore, she had one of her signature performances in a 56-51 win over private school powerhouse Good Counsel in the season opener. That was a breakout game for Meyers, who helped the Vikings reach the Maryland 4A state title that season and win their first title since 1995 in March.
Meyers also considered Stanford and Northwestern before ultimately picking Princeton.
“I felt like I was part of the family and I could fit in with the culture,” she said. “Really I just felt comfortable.”
With her college decision set, Meyers said she feels as if the weight is off her shoulders. No longer does she have to worry about performing in front of recruiters or the daily phone calls and texts with coaches. She can focus again on playing and competing. She can continue heading to River Falls park, practicing her high-arcing jumper on the double-rims.
“I won’t have to think about [recruiting] come July,” Meyers said. “I’ll play for for fun. I won’t play for anyone else but for my teammates and me.”
