Lakita Basnight helped lead Washington to a third-place finish in the 2-A Eastern Plains Conference this season, but that didn’t mark the end of her basketball career. She put pen to paper last week to commit her services to Brunswick Community College. She will continue to don similar shades of blue, now playing under the Lady Dolphin moniker.

BCC coach Joe Gaughan had had his eye on Basnight. The recruiting process took off when he saw Basnight play in an AAU tournament and noticed how far she had come as a player.

“He said he saw improvement in me and that he wanted me to be on his team,” Basnight said. “He explained everything to me about how the school was set up and I thought it would be a good start. I want to start off small and go big.”

The whole recruiting process went pretty well for Basnight. The only thing about the decision that weighed on her was the distance. BCC is just outside Wilmington, roughly two and a half hours from Washington.

“I thought a lot about distance and how far it is from here,” she said. “It’s almost three hours from here. That was the main stress. … (Other than that), it caught me pretty quickly.”

Basnight would like to start at the junior college level and work on her game before trying to play for a university. She knows she’s not always the most dominant player on the court. She compensates for it with her work ethic and drive to become a better player.

“Coach (Ralph) Biggs has taught me a lot,” Basnight said. Biggs was a first-year coach for the Lady Pack this past season. “You can’t expect so much out of people that they don’t expect from themselves. He’s taught me not to rush and always to settle down and take your time with your plays. You can always improve. I just know that I’m not the best on the court and that somebody can teach you something new.”

Basnight said one of the things she wants to learn is to be more versatile. She was typically a post player for Washington, but wants to be able to play shooting guard and small forward, too. She hopes the Lady Dolphin coaches can help her spread out her shooting range.

There are a lot of other things that excite Basnight about continuing her career. The Lady Dolphins have conference opponents not only across North Carolina, but also in Virginia and South Carolina.

“I’m excited to meet my new teammates and go to places out of state,” she said. “Our conference has South Carolina and Virginia, as well as some other places. I just get to meet other players in other places.”

Basnight takes her next step at the end of the month. She’ll arrive on campus, meet the rest of her teammates and decide with whom she wants to live. Most importantly, the Lady Dolphins will get a feel for each other on the court when they get a chance to play against one another.

Off the court, Basnight is also committed to keeping her grades up so she can finish her program and, hopefully, transfer to a four-year school.