MORGANTOWN — Trinity Christian School girls’ basketball coach Mike Baldy can still remember the conversation during the end-of-season awards meeting that led to Reagan Sharp being named the 2018 Mason Dixon Conference Player of the Year.
“I remember one of the coaches said something they said, ‘throughout conference play, I could stop that girl, we could slow down this girl, and we could do something to this girl to neutralize her, but we just couldn’t stop Reagan Sharp,’ ” Baldy said.
The honor was just one of numerous awards and achievements earned by Sharp during her decorated high school career. On Tuesday, she added another to the list as she committed to play collegiate basketball at Davis & Elkins College.
“It’s a big relief being able to tell people that’s where I’m going. It’ll be easier to focus on the regular season now,” Sharp said.
Sharp decided early in her high school career that she was interested in pursuing the game at a collegiate level. She understood that eventually she’d have to hang up her gear for good, but there were plenty of options that could prolong that day.
“I’ve played for a long time, and it hit me a few years ago that there was going to be a time where I wasn’t playing basketball any more, and I wanted to push that back as far as I could,” she said. “That’s when I knew I would want to play at the next level.”
Sharp valued being close to home, and narrowed her choices down to a trip of private, liberal arts schools in north-central West Virginia — Alderson Broaddus, Davis & Elkins and West Virginia Wesleyan.
Though Sharp enjoyed her visits with each school, she said it was the friendly environment and similarity to Trinity — both in its small size and academics — that convinced her to call Elkins home. The school — with an enrollment of just 847 students — was ranked the No. 26 University in the south in 2012.
“I had formed a really nice relationship with the coach and the team, and both academically and athleticall,y I felt like it was the right fit for me,” Sharp said. “The small environment will be an easy transition. I thought I’d be able to form close, personal relationships with the coaches and professors.”
Sharp will bring the Senators — an NCAA Division II program competing in the Mountain East Conference starting in 2019 — a multitude of skills on the court.
Sharp proves a jack of all trades on the offensive end, wielding a deadly shot and a knack for distributing the ball and creating offense. Defensively, Baldy describes her as a “bully,” the type of player that will snatch the ball straight from the hands of an opposing ball handler.
Perhaps Sharp’s most dynamic trait is what Baldy describes as the “fourth-quarter killer.” Which means, regardless of how the night has gone for Sharp, she can usually be counted on to step up in the final period. Baldy counts numerous times that she’s helped save a game in the closing minutes.
“It’s kind of like an intangible. I could name 15 things she’s really good at,” Baldy said. “She’s one of the all-time leading scorers here, and when you look back at her stats she’s going to lead or be at the top statistically in nearly every category.
“She’s started since a freshman, almost every game of her career and she’s been a captain the whole way.”
