Macie Feldman was a four-year starter on the Notre Dame basketball and soccer teams that had a combined 76.4 winning percentage with her in the lineups. (Photo by Bob Jackson)
By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
Receiving an invitation to the Kentucky All-Stars girls basketball tryouts on Saturday at Centre College was a crowning achievement for Macie Feldman’s impressive high school athletic career.
The Notre Dame Academy senior was a four-year starter in both basketball and soccer for the Pandas. Those two teams had a combined record of 162-43-8 for a 76.1 winning percentage with her in the varsity lineups.
In her final year, Notre Dame’s soccer team won the 2021 state championship to complete an undefeated season and the basketball team climbed to No. 3 in the Associated Press state rankings.
Feldman had career totals of 1,142 points, 464 assists and 271 steals as Notre Dame’s point guard. (Photo by Bob Jackson)
If Feldman is selected to the Kentucky All-Stars basketball team, she’ll end her high school career playing in the annual two-game summer series against the top seniors in Indiana.
“I was super excited when I got the invite to the tryouts,” she said. “Once you get into high school basketball, you look at those teams every year and think, ‘When I’m a senior I want to play like them and become an all-star.’”
Feldman is one of six 9th Region girls invited to the tryouts. The others are Maddie Lawson of Dixie Heights, Rylee Turner of Newport Central Catholic, Lacey Bradshaw of Notre Dame, Jenna Lillard of Ludlow and Lauren Hawthorne of Conner.
The only point guard in that group is Feldman, who had career totals of 1,142 points, 464 assists, 461 rebounds and 271 steals playing that position over the last four seasons.
Notre Dame coach Kes Murphy remembers telling Feldman that she was going to be the varsity team’s starting point guard the summer before her freshman year.
“It was tough for a freshman, but she led from day one,” Murphy said. “We put it in her hands because we saw she had some leadership qualities and she progressed from that point on both as a leader and a player, and as an individual.”
Feldman played a similar role in soccer as a four-year starter at midfield. In her senior season, she finished with a team-high 57 points (18 goals, 21 assists) for the Pandas, who set state records for most wins (28) and most shutouts (25).
Feldman said she received NCAA Division I scholarship offers from Northern Kentucky University for basketball and Wright State University for soccer. As one of the top students in her senior class with a 4.6 grade-point average and 35 on the ACT, she also had several academic scholarships on the table.
Feldman was voted first-team all-state in soccer for being the leading scorer on Notre Dame’s state championship team. (Photo by Bob Jackson)
She considered all her options for months before deciding to attend Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, one of the elite medical research institutions in the world.
Feldman plans to major in neuroscience and play on the Hopkins women’s basketball team that competes on the NCAA Division III level and doesn’t offer athletic scholarships.
She received an academic financial aid package that will reduce the high cost of tuition.
“When I got serious about playing a sport in college, I wanted to go somewhere prestigious academically because I knew I could, and I knew basketball or soccer were not going to be forever,” Feldman said.
“It was really a difficult decision just because I could have gone (to other colleges) and played basketball for free or soccer for free. But I knew after doing this it’ll be more valuable for me in the end, even if I am paying a lot more.”
If Feldman is chosen for the Kentucky All-Stars team, she’ll be back on the court with Murphy. He’ll be one of the assistants on the coaching staff for the two-game series against Indiana.
“As a coach, she’s one of those kids who doesn’t come along very often,” Murphy said. “She’s a kid who always played at a high level and she’s super-coachable. I only had to tell her something one time and she applied it from that point on. I can only hope and pray that I get another Macie.”
Local players invited to the Kentucky All-Stars boys tryouts on Saturday include Mitchell Rylee of Covington Catholic, Kiernan Geraci of Dixie Heights and Brant Smithers of Walton-Verona.
The boys and girls all-stars games will be played Friday, June 10 at the Owensboro Sports Center and Saturday, June 11 at Southport Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
