By Laura Amato
Danielle Patterson enjoys a challenge. This season was the best kind of challenge.
The Mary Louis Academy senior star was the spark that made the Hilltoppers go this winter and notched a handful of historic moments for the program. It’s for that reason that Patterson is this year’s TimesLedger All-Queens Player of the Year.
“We had a bunch of ups and downs and, to be honest, the season could have gone a lot of ways,” Patterson said. “But we made it go the way we wanted and we won a Brooklyn-Queens title, a state title, a city title. None of that has ever happened before. Even though we didn’t win Federations, all the other things that happened. That was the highlight for us.”
Patterson opted to transfer to Mary Louis two seasons ago and it’s a decision she has never regretted, but one she has been forced to explain more than once. After all, the Hilltoppers were still trying to find their CHSAA footing at the time and it would have been easy for Patterson to take her talents somewhere else.
She didn’t want to do that.
She wanted the chance to help define a program and this season, she did just that at Mary Louis.
“I knew if I went to Mary Louis, I could do something no one else had done before,” Patterson said. “I think that spoke more than going some place where I knew I was going to get a championship. To do that for them and it hadn’t been done, that was big.”
Patterson grew up with a basketball in her hands and she’s always known she was talented, but she stepped into a slightly different role with the Hilltoppers this season. This year, Patterson wasn’t just there for her stats. She was there for her leadership potential and her sheer determination to walk away from every game with another victory.
“If I went into every game thinking that I had to go out and get mine or just be a specific type of player, it wouldn’t work,” Patterson said. “I just had to take everything one step at a time. I knew what I had to do going into each game and each game required me to do something different.”
Of course, Patterson still managed to jam-pack her box score every night. She averaged 25 points, 11 rebounds, four assists and two steals in her final high school hoops season and, more often than not, did it while battling multiple defenders.
That, however, was just another challenge.
“I take the double and triple teams as a compliment,” Patterson said. “I know I’m a great player, but I think it’s just about staying level-headed and continuing to trust yourself and work hard.”
Patterson is thankful for every moment and every obstacle she faced this season, but now she’s ready to set her sights on the next one. She’ll head to Notre Dame next year and while she knows it won’t be easy, Patterson can’t bring herself to be anything but excited for what’s next.
“I know that when I go in there I want to have just as a big of an impact as I had coming into Mary Louis,” Patterson said. “You’re going in as a freshman, it’s a whole new game and a whole new speed. But I want to grasp everything I can and just being the best I can.”
