Cleaveland’s hard work pays off

By Saundra Brown
Staff writer

Larkin Cleaveland, a sophomore guard for the Lady Bobcats, knows how to work hard.
Last year she was a third-string point guard, and this year she is in the starting rotation for guard.
The Lady Bobcats’ season started off a little rocky, but things may be changing.
Cleaveland said,”We have a very young team, with only 2 seniors and only 6 players returning from last year’s team.”
Earlier in the year this young team needed to learn how to play together, and once that happened, things turned out really well for everyone on the team.
“At the beginning, we had to learn to play together, and it took everyone a little while to figure out what role we needed them to play to be successful,” said Cleaveland.
Cleveland is a graduate of LaGrange Academy with honors. She received honors in basketball, softball and soccer. She was Best Offensive player and MVP her last two years of playing high school basketball.
Larkin is the daughter of Chris and Lesa Cleaveland. Cleaveland said, “My family is very important to me, and I know that no matter what happens they will be there for me.”
She is a business major and wants to own her own business. This year with the Lady Bobcats, Cleaveland said,
“I play point guard on our team, and our record is 10-8. I play about 30 minutes per game. I average 4.3 assists, 2 steals, 2.8 rebounds and 6.5 points per game.”
Cleaveland has high goals set high for the team. The Lady Bobcats are currently tied for third place in the Peach Belt South Conference and only have one more lost then first place Columbus State.
“My main goal for this year is to win the Peach Belt Tournament, which I think is an attainable goal for us this year,” she said.
Larkin contributed in 27 games off the bench as a freshman. She had her best game in a win against Morris College in which she scored 10 points, grabbed three rebounds and handed out four assists. Cleaveland was named to the PBC Presidential Honor Roll last year.
After losing Kesha Gaines to graduation, Cleaveland knew her playing time could jump up. So going into the summer, she was committed on playing better and getting into the starting lineup.
Head coach John Carrick was so impressed with Cleaveland from May to August he said,
“I have never seen one player improved so much in 4 or 5 months to get into the starting lineup. Confidence is a large part of everything you we do. She can see how valuable she is to this team.”
“She dropped weigh. One of the important things she did was she never got out of shape over the summer”, said Carrick. “She went to the YMCA and shot everyday, but she really improved on defense, so she can stay with the quicker guards.”
So come out and watch Cleaveland and the rest of the Lady Bobcats bump heads with the other top Peach Belt teams.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 8 2002. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry