From Spain to the States, No. 1 Ranked Senior Sarah Strong is Ready to Continue Her Journey at UCONN
Growing up in Spain, Sarah Strong’s first introduction to the game was from her mother, Allison Feaster. Feaster, a former standout at Harvard, was drafted by the Los Angeles Sparks in ’98 with the fifth overall pick, went on to become an All-Star in ’04 and played overseas in France, Portugal, Italy and Spain. Strong remembers going to her mom’s practices and watching her put in work on the hardwood, all while falling in love with the game herself. “She would hustle a lot,” Strong tells us over Zoom in May. “That was probably her main thing. Just energy on defense, hustle and [being] aggressive. She [was] a dawg.”
The game has always been a part of Strong’s life—she even suited up for the same club team as mom—but it wasn’t until she moved to the United States in fifth grade that she started taking her game to the next level given the level of competition.
“The talent level and skill level is a lot different here, so definitely it’s a little harder. I started getting results out of it, so I was like, OK, let me lock in,” she says. Off the court, Strong also had to deal with the transition that comes with moving from a different country, whether it was cultural adjustments—in Spain, she would watch a lot of American movies and was nervous about having to deal with bullies in school like what she saw in the films—or the language barrier. Strong, who speaks Spanish, initially struggled with reading comprehension in English.
She’s come a long way since then. A five-star recruit and the No. 1 ranked player in the ESPNW 100 for the class of 2024, Strong is an undeniable talent with an all-around game—at 6-2, she uses her strength and size to her advantage, whether it’s holding her own on the post, using her silky smooth handles to drive to the rim or relying on her acute court vision to dish out dimes to her teammates. The 2023-24 Gatorade North Carolina Girls Basketball Player of the Year averaged a double-double at Grace Christian School (NC) while also maintaining a 3.68 GPA.
https://www.slamonline.com/the-magazine/250/sarah-strong/