AGAINST THE FIGHT: An ankle injury has slowed Karns City senior Brooklynn Taylor this summer, but hasn’t dampened her intensity or her pursuit of perfection

KARNS CITY, Pa. (EYT) — Sometimes Brooklynn Taylor cringes when she sees herself in the movie.

All of those mistakes, big and small, real and not, catch the eye of the new senior guard on the Karns City girls basketball team and haunt her.

“It kind of makes me mad when I watch myself make mistakes,” Taylor said. “But it also shows me what I need to work on. My ball handling. My mid-range shot – being able to stop and shoot. Things like that. If you can do that, it can change the whole game. Sometimes it’s just hard for me to watch myself and see all the mistakes.”

However, Taylor is her own worst critic.

She says she is “hot-headed,” but her teammates and coaches would simply describe her as “intense.”

Taylor is a perfectionist.

“I have always been very involved in basketball,” she said.

After suffering two left ankle injuries during the offseason playing AAU and summer league basketball, Taylor is pretty much all she can do at the moment.

The first one wasn’t quite as bad as the last one. Taylor tore several ligaments in his ankle in the summer and is out for an indefinite period of time.

“Thankfully no surgery,” Taylor said, acknowledging that’s not much consolation since she can only do very few basketball activities. “I twisted the ball pretty badly the first time and had to wear a boot for about a month. Then I was allowed to play again a few weeks later. I started playing in summer league again and then I twisted the ball again and tore ligaments. It was a pretty frustrating summer for me.”

Taylor goes to physical therapy twice a week to rehabilitate her injury and says she is slowly making progress.

When she returns to the court, she hopes for big things for herself and Karns City this season.

Last year, Taylor averaged 10.3 points per game and stepped in as the primary point guard when junior Chloe Fritch was sidelined midseason with a torn ACL.

Taylor showed a penchant for making game-winning shots, and her 3-pointer on the final buzzer helped Karns City to a 37-36 victory over North Clarion in the Keystone Shortway Athletic Conference semifinals.

The Gremlins have a strong, young roster and just won two consecutive District 9 Class 3A championships.

“We’re excited about this season,” Taylor said. “We have big goals. We want to accomplish a lot.”

Karns City has lost only one senior player from that roster and will likely have Fritch back from her knee injury early in the season to give the Gremlins a dynamic backcourt.

Taylor and Fritch are close friends and have supported each other as they battle their injuries.

“We really helped each other by keeping each other positive and giving each other positive words because there’s not much you can do to change what happened,” Taylor said. “You have to be mentally strong for them.”

THE TAYLOR FILE

SURNAME: Brooklyn Taylor – A Song for Love

SCHOOL: City of Karns

YEAR: Senior

SPORTS: basketball

Q: What have you learned about teamwork from your experience as a basketball player?

A: You can’t always do everything yourself. You have to work as a team. The others are basically your family.

Q: What do you think is the biggest challenge for a high school athlete today?

A: Injuries and returning from them. You have to be mentally strong and that is not always easy.

Q: What is the best advice you have received about basketball from a family member, coach, teammate, etc.?

A: Just do your best. You don’t want to walk off the court at the end of a game and think that if you had just played a little harder you could have achieved more or played better and been the deciding factor in the game.

Q: What interests do you have outside of basketball?

A: I like spending time with my family and friends. And with my dogs – they are my buddies.

Q: How many dogs do you have?

A: Two. Duke and Max. Duke is a purebred Labrador and Max is a Labrador/Boxer mix. They are crazy. I love all animals – except sharks.

Q: What do you have against sharks?

A: (Laughs) They are scary and they bite.

Q: What have you learned about yourself on your best and worst days as a player?

A: How to overcome adversity. You have to be able to pick yourself up on bad days and not get cocky after good days. You can’t let either of those define you as a player. You can’t let a game define you as a player.

Q: What are your goals in basketball?

A: Well, I would love to play in college if I get the chance. I’m going to go to Butler County Community College for a nursing program. Maybe I’ll play there.

Q: What would someone be surprised to know about you?

A: I love children. I babysit a lot. There aren’t many people my age who enjoy spending time with young children, but I love it. I remember when I was a little kid, all I wanted to do was play with the older kids.

Q: Complete this sentence: In my fridge you always find (blank space)?

A: Ice cream.

Q: Which flavor?

A: Rainbow sorbet.

Q: Which three famous people would you like to have dinner with and why?

A: Donald Trump, because I think he’s funny. Caitlin Clark, because I would ask her how she deals with all the media stuff and how she deals with it mentally. And Kevin Hart.

Q: This is quite a set dining table.

A: (Laughs). Yeah, that’s it. I don’t know what I’d talk about. Kevin Hart would probably beat us all up.

Q: And for dessert you could have rainbow sorbet, right?

A: (Laughs) Yes! That sounds good.