By Mike London
mike.london@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — Never give up.

Recent Salisbury High graduate Icesis Nwafor knows what that’s all about.

Nwafor can play. She can defend and she can shoot the lights out from deep  —  a rare and valuable combination on the basketball floor — but she was virtually un-recruited until late in her senior year.

But she hung in there, and now she knows what’s next on the menu. College basketball and the pursuit of a nursing degree at Bluefield State, a Division II HBCU in West Virginia.

“The recruiting process was long and it was frustrating,” Nwafor said. “I wasn’t a starter for three years (freshman varsity season at East Rowan, sophomore and junior seasons at Salisbury) and wasn’t getting that much playing time, so I wasn’t an option for college coaches. I didn’t get any looks until my senior year when I started for the first time. I wanted to give up on basketball so many times, but I kept hoping my time would come and I kept myself going. Before my senior year, I decided to get in the gym and prove the doubters wrong.”

There’s a “Most Outstanding Player” plaque from the 2A state championship game in her home, so she proved it to everyone who had doubts. She was at her biggest in the biggest games. No way the Hornets win their second straight state title without Nwafor playing great against Shelby, East Burke and Seaforth down the stretch. Nwafor scored 43 points in the Hornets’ last three games. As teams  focused on trying to deal with Kyla Bryant and MaKayla Noble, it was Nwafor who stepped forward and did a lot of the damage.

“Icesis was our most improved player,” Salisbury head coach Lakai Brice said. “Senior year was her best year, and just watching her grow as the season progressed was remarkable. She guarded the other team’s best player, took that as a challenge every night, accepted that responsibility. Her defense created offense for her and her teammates — and she didn’t just hit shots, she hit huge shots. She always took big shots with confidence.”

The toughest playoff challenge the Hornets faced, as far as talent and experience, was on the road at Shelby in the fourth round. Nwafor rained 20 in a 46-40 victory, and she always will remember that night against the Lions as her greatest high school game.

“The championship game against Seaforth also was very satisfying,” Nwafor said. “I felt like I played a very important role in that game. It was like all my hard work this year paid off and everything I wanted was finally coming to me.”

Nwafor is an upbeat person, Even when it looked like she didn’t have a college basketball future, she brought a positive attitude to every practice.

“It’s not often I don’t have a smile on my face,” Nwafor said. “I’m emotional and I care a lot about people. I try to make people laugh. That’s the type of person I am.”

Nwafor doesn’t possess Bryant’s impressive skill level and isn’t blessed with Noble’s size and extreme athleticism, but she’s got some stuff going for her.

“I’d say my strength is just being a hard worker who will give 100 percent effort every time I’m on the court,” Nwafor said. “I may not be the most skilled, but I make up for it with intensity and dedication. And I shoot with confidence. The more my senior season went on, the more confidently I shot.”

Outstanding academics helped Nwafor get recruited. She’s been on target in the classroom since kindergarten. Even juggling basketball with work, she kept making honor rolls in high school.

Still, there there were months when it didn’t look like it was going to come together for her as far as next-level hoops. Finding a college where she could play and wanted to play that also offered a nursing program was a narrow fit.

She was down to her last few phone numbers when she texted Bluefield State, but head coach Paul Davis responded.

Next came a phone conversation that lit up Nwafor’s world. Davis checked out film of Nwafor, but he really didn’t need to. Once he talked to Brice about her, he knew he wanted Nwafor to join the Big Blue, a program that went 12-14 this season.

And now a 5-foot-7 injection of smiles, defense and 3-pointers is headed north.

“Icecis is a kid that will light up any room,” Brice said. “Just a bright light. Smiling and cracking jokes all the time. When the coach from Bluefield State called me and asked about what Icesis was like as a person, I had a chance to talk about her. When you get a kid like her who is high character, who comes from a winning program, who has a 3.9 GPA, well, you can mold them and develop them into the kind of player you want them to be.”

Basketball is important to Nwafor, , but the bottom line is all that sweat she has put into becoming a better basketball player has provided a straight path to a degree and a career.

“My academic hope is to exceed the expectations needed to become a certified nurse,” Nwafor said.