Dominique Peters knew that she was walking into something big during her freshman season with the Lawrence High School girls’ basketball team.
That year, the squad had its best season ever, going 20-7 and reaching the Mercer County Tournament for the first time in school history. The team was packed with high-scoring, powerful seniors like Daphne Ginn, Amirah Brown and Brooke West—all players Peters used to watch as a middle school student.
So, when she made the varsity team as a freshman, she was a little intimidated. Her fears, though, were quickly alleviated.
“You know when players come from college and go to the NBA, and they’re like, ‘I’m playing with Kevin Garnett’? That’s how I felt,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m playing with Amirah Brown.’ I saw them play my whole life, and now I’m actually playing with them. It was scary at first, but when you get to know them, you’re not scared. They’re your teammates. They teach you.”
That season was a milestone for the Cardinals, and, it turns out, a milestone for Peters, too.
Head coach Dana Williams said Peters completely absorbed everything the upperclassmen had to offer while also forging her own identity.
“She kind of had a fun role on the team where she was around a lot of really talented players who were doing all the scoring,” Williams said. “She was able to take that time to come into her own, so she developed defensively, because that’s where she was getting her playing time. Also, she was able to work on her passing game.”
Williams noted that Peters’s “basketball IQ” also skyrocketed that season. Peters became a true role player, moving from position to position as Williams needed and developing a deep knowledge of the intriciacies of the game in the process.
That, combined with the influence of Ginn, Brown and West, was enough to prepare Peters for her sophomore year, when she took over as one of the team’s leaders and scored a team-high 274 points.
“Daphne knew basketball inside and out,” Peters said. “She was the one who made me realize that it’s not all about athleticism. Amirah was the best point guard I’ve seen. Those two made me think about basketball, instead of just running and shooting.”
And it’s only gone uphill since then. Peters has led the team in scoring each year and is consistently first or second in rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. As of Jan. 19, Peters averaged 15.3 points per game for the 5-5 Cardinals—just about what she needs to maintain to reach the 1,000 point milestone. She currently has 803 career points.
Peters’s basketball career started as a child in Brooklyn. She and her family moved to Lawrence when she was in fourth grade, but before that, she and her father, could often be found playing on courts in New York. Her dad and much of his family played the sport, and so did her brother, Dylan, who also played for the Cardinals and graduated from LHS last year.
She also played a lot of basketball with Dylan and his older friends growing up, so when she first joined an organized team when her family moved to Lawrence, it was hard to adjust at first.
“I always played with [a bigger ball], so when I started playing organized, my shot was all messed up,” she said. “I was always more aggressive than most.”
She said she started taking basketball seriously in eighth grade, which is also around the time she started to notice the older girls on varsity squad. She’d head to the high school during the winter to watch Dylan’s games, as well as the girls’ matchups.
Now, she’s Lawrence’s most versatile player. She can rack up eight blocks in a single game—like she did against Hamilton West on Jan. 11—and then score what Williams calls “a quiet 15” points. Her points almost go unnoticed because of all the other things she does on the court.
“You’re jumping out of your chair clapping for her and cheering her on when she gets the steal, or the block, or the huge assist,” Williams said. “I think her stat line is what’s most impressive, and not just her points.”
That versatility can be found on the track during the spring, too. Peters initially started running as a way to stay in shape for basketball, but she quickly discovered that she was a natural. She has competed in the 4×400, 100, 200, high jump and triple jump, but added that she can (and will) try everything.
It’s a quality that Williams has valued since day one. She called Peters “a coach’s dream.”
“We have her move to forward when we need her to,” she said. “We have her move to point guard when we need her to. Yeah, she’s a two or three guard, but she plays everywhere for us. We’ll even stick her at center against certain zones. Not only that, she’s more than willing to do it because she knows it’s what’s best for the team. Now, you have a kid who not only can do it, but wants to do it.”
For the rest of the season, Peters hopes to see the team continue to improve. At 5-5, the Cardinals already have more wins than the last two seasons—and that’s after a 1-3 start.
“As a team, we’ve had rough seasons,” she said. “Even though we lose some games, I feel like we’re playing so much better than we have before.”
Individually, she hopes to continue to broaden her understanding of the game, though she and Williams both said scoring her 1,000th point would be nice, too.
“She thinks I’m silly with this, but I want her to be happy,” Williams said. “I would love for her to score 1,000. We all would. She would. She’s having a great time in her senior year, playing a game that she loves with some awesome teammates. This is one of the most bonded teams I’ve coached in a long time. I want her to feel like we’re competing in every game, win or lose, and we’re playing our best. Hopefully the 1,000 can be the cherry on top.”
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