When senior Sarafina Arthur-Williams started playing basketball in the seventh grade, she would often cry or pretend to be injured just so her mom would let her skip practice. It is almost impossible to think that five years later, that same girl who once dreaded practice is one of the commanding forces on the highly successful girls basketball team.

“I had never thought of ever playing basketball at all,” Arthur-Williams said. “In the seventh grade my friend asked me to play for her recreational team.”

At 6 feet, 1 inch, Arthur-Williams’ height gives her an edge over most other 18-year-old girls. When she started playing, she believed that her height would give her an advantage, however, she experienced a wake-up call once she began playing.

“I thought that since I was tall, I was going to be really good,” Arthur-Williams said. “But then I realized that there were a lot of people much better than me. Once I started getting a lot better and realized I had the potential to be good, I started liking [basketball].”

In the eighth grade, Arthur-Williams joined the Lady Panthers basketball team and began to rapidly improve. She had a standout eighth grade season with the Hoover Middle School team and caught the attention of the CHS varsity coaches. She made the varsity team her freshman year and has started since her sophomore year. Her success on the court is partly due to her height, which she has used as an advantage under the rim. However, she realizes that as a young player she still has much to work on.

“I am a good rebounder because I get really big in the paint and I am also really fast for being so tall,” Arthur-Williams said. “I need to work on being consistent and going hard at every practice because I can be very lazy.”

This past summer before her senior year, Arthur-Williams accepted a scholarship to play Division I basketball at the University of North Carolina at Greensborough (UNCG) after garnering attention from other Division I schools such as Dartmouth, Northeastern and Loyola.

“I took visits to Northeastern and UNCG,” Arthur-Williams said. “At UNCG I went up and got a tour and I had a blast and just got that feeling that it was perfect.”

This season, Arthur-Williams is the leading scorer on the CHS girls varsity basketball team with an average of 13.7 points per game. She has led the Lady Bulldogs to an impressive 16-3 record, the team’s best in years.

“My goal for the rest of our season is to go all the way to states,” Arthur-Williams said.

Throughout her basketball career, Arthur-Williams credits her mom and her Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) coach Milton Kimbrough as her biggest supporters and fans.

“Coach Kimborough helped me get recruited through the Lady Panthers and always had faith in me,” Arthur-Williams said. “My mom always made me go to my practices even when I would fake sick and try to stay home, so if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be as good as I am.”