SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Meet Lily and Katie Ghazanfari! These sisters are big into basketball and volleyball and alongside their academics, love to give their absolute best in everything they do.

Lily

Lily is 11 years old and is in the 6th grade at Gold River Discovery Center. She has participated in soccer, basketball, volleyball, and swimming with five years into basketball already and three years into volleyball. She is a part of Folsom Elite Basketball Academy and Aspire 12-1 Club Volleyball as well as the 8th Grade Elite volleyball team.

Lily’s biggest challenge in basketball is working on putting her arms in when she’s shooting and dribbling left-handed because she is right-handed. In volleyball, she could work on setting, but she is a hitter so it doesn’t matter as much. But, to be a better player, this is something she wants to work on in order to make the varsity team!

It’s fun for Lily when she does group activities with everyone. She also loves her games when she is playing aggressively with her teammates and having a good time. But she also knows that in order to keep getting better, there are lots of things she can practice without her family, coach, or team. Things like dribbling in basketball and bumping and setting in volleyball.

Some of the best advice Lily has been given by her basketball trainer (and dad) is this: “Put your hand in the cookie jar when you shoot” (follow through.) Mentally, it’s the best way to keep shooting consistently.

In the past, when shooting a basketball, she used to have both her arms out and just pushed the ball into the basket. But, she was missing a lot of shots. When she got used to having a follow-through, she started making a lot more of her shots. (Put your hand in the cookie jar!)

In volleyball, she has had trouble serving underhand. She says, “I would throw the ball up and then bump it, as opposed to letting my hand get to the ball first.”

Learning how to overcome challenges, and learning from mistakes, has taught Lily persistence and patience. She knows also that it’s important to be a leader when her team needs her.

Along with sports, she loves to play video games, and call and hang out with her friends.

Katie

Katie Ghazanfari is 14 years old, is a freshman at Rio Americana, and also plays both basketball and volleyball like her sister. She grew up playing basketball, soccer, swim, and volleyball. So far, she has completed eight years of basketball and six years of volleyball. She is a part of the Lincoln Lady Spartans, and Aspire volleyball 14-1s. She plays varsity basketball and freshman volleyball at Rio Americano.

Katie’s biggest goal is to get a full-ride basketball scholarship to UCLA. She loves everything about the game and according to her, “What’s not to love?” Along with loving all of the details of the sport, there’s nothing like the feeling of having a game-winning shot and everyone starts screaming. Or there’s the satisfying sound of the “swish” when she makes a three-pointer in her dad’s face.

Her biggest challenge to the sport is dribbling to her weak side. To manage this, every practice she tries to implement the use of her right hand wherever she can during drills. It also helps to have a pregame ritual of stretching before she plays and making a mental list of goals for each game.

She also listens to her coaches. One time, Katie’s basketball coach told her before a game, “Shoot the ball – you pass too much.” In that particular game, she had 10 points so she took his advice and did just that…and it helped!

But sometimes, no matter how much she learns, mistakes happen. During Katie’s last basketball game, she had four fouls by the end of the third quarter (which has never had happen before.) But, her coach put her back in, she figured out what she was doing wrong, and had a nice fast break to end the game!

Being a member of several teams of sports, she knows that everyone messes up. And this is part of learning and growing. Some of the best advice Katie received was “Failure is part of the process to becoming successful.” And this advice sticks with her with every win and loss and every challenge she faces today.

Along with her love of basketball, Katie also loves hanging out with her friends every chance she can. Her best advice to other athletes is to practice, practice, practice! She didn’t think she was going to make varsity basketball her first year in high school, but she had hundreds of hours of practice in the gym to work up to that tryout, and in the end, all of that practice paid off.

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