Player Profile: Ashlyn Sturdy

As we move towards the start of the season I will not only be giving you previews of most of the conferences in Southeastern Illinois and all of the teams in those conferences, I will also be profiling many of the girls that you see on the rankings of top players in the state. I will use the same set of questions with each player, but of course the answers they provide and my experiences watching that player will cause each article to be a little different. Our next player is <strong>Ashlyn Sturdy</strong> , a 5'8 guard from Tri City/Sangamon Valley. Ashlyn is coming off an outstanding sophomore campaign that saw her average 18.4 points, 5.8 rebounds , 4.1 assists and 4.7 steals per game. She capped off her year by being named Macon County player of the year. As a freshman Ashlyn was a starter and averaged 10.6 points per game, but that was clearly just the starting point for what was to come. Ashlyn has always been a hard worker and is consistently trying to improve her game. As she is growing and getting stronger she is also working on being more explosive getting to the basket and being able to finish more consistently at the basket. During the off season her school team played one day tournaments in Havana and Williamsville and attended the UIS team camp. In addition they played some individual games with Riverton and Williamsville throughout June. The team was able to go 14-3 during that schedule and only lost 3 close games to Camp Point, Havana and Taylorville. The team was able to win Regionals last year before losing to Auburn in the Sectionals. Coming into her Junior year Ashlyn and her team are focused on winning their conference, the Regionals again and getting to 20 wins.  During the AAU circuit she has been playing with Team Swish for several years and feels like they play together as a team very well. They know each others strengths and roles and can gel together quickly when they get back together. They played in Chicago, Indy and St Louis this year. They won the Arch Mayhem tourney in St Louis and Ashlyn was named  MVP of the championship game. In addition they won the USJN Midwest Summer Showcase in July and Ashlyn was a pool all star. She really enjoyed the Indy trip and winning such a big tournament. In addition while they were in town the team was able to see a WNBA game and see the Seattle Storm play. Ashlyn feels her best skills are her ball handling, defense and passing. She feels like she is able to stay calm during pressure situations and as a student of the game she can handle whatever those situations call for. She is excellent in the classroom, rated #1 in her class. Her desire is to find an excellent academic school so that will be a big part of her process of finding a good college fit. Math and Science are her favorite subjects and she plans to major in Biology or Chemistry in college with a pre-med emphasis. The long term goal is to be an orthopedic surgeon. Ashlyn has taken campus tours of Millikin and UIS.. She really enjoyed both schools and meeting their coaching staffs. She has been in contact with other schools but has not had the chance to visit them yet. This young lady obviously has a bright future on and off the court. She has the skills to score over 20 points per game this year and should continue to draw more attention from college coaches as she enters her Junior season. I am looking forward to getting a chance to see how her game continues to improve.