Notre Dame recruit Jackie Young nets national honor

As the current Notre Dame women’s basketball team has a rare lull before the NCAA Tournament storm, its future continues to make headlines.

Bold headlines.

On Thursday, Irish recruit Jackie Young was named the winner of the Naismith National High School Trophy for girls basketball, putting her in the rarified air of former ND All-American Skylar Diggins.

And one of the other four finalists for the award just happened to be future teammate Erin Boley, a 6-foot-2, forward from Elizabethtown, Ky. Both Young, from Princeton, Ind., and Boley were named Gatorade Player of the Year in their respective states, also on Thursday.

Young, a 5-11 guard, becomes the third ND signee to win the Naismith Trophy in its 29-year history, joining Diggins from South Bend Washington High (2009) and Michelle Marciniak (1991), who finished her college career at Tennessee.

She is Indiana’s all-time leading scorer (3,268 points) for either gender, first breaking former Wawasee standout Shanna Zolman’s girls record, then Bedford-North Lawrence standout Damon Bailey’s mark.  

Young was selected by basketball journalists from around the country who form the Naismith Awards national high school board of selectors.

“Jackie literally has the ability to take over a game like no other player I have ever seen, but she doesn’t want to do that,” Princeton coach Charles Mair said. “She wants to get her teammates involved.

“She is the most unselfish big-time player I have seen in 35 years of coaching varsity girls basketball. When the game is on the line, she has a third gear. It is Jackie time, game over.”