Lumberton’s Gabby Locklear, center, signs to play college basketball at Fayetteville Technical Community College during a ceremony Friday in Lumberton.
Chris Stiles | The Robesonian
LUMBERTON — As coaches talked about Gabby Locklear on Friday, they described a quiet freshman that’s grown into a confident senior, and as a stellar piece on the court for the Lumberton girls basketball team.
Now she’ll take those talents and hope to continue that growth at the next level after she signed Friday with Fayetteville Technical Community College.
“I started off very shy, but once I started to learn myself a little more, I started to get more confidence and it all started falling in place on and off the court,” Locklear said.
Locklear averaged 9.9 points, 3.2 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.7 steals per game in her senior season with the Pirates. Locklear earned All-County selections in her junior and senior seasons and was an honorable-mention pick as a freshman and sophomore.
“She’s played a lot of basketball so she’s got a good IQ, she understands the game,” Lumberton coach Ivy Johnson said. “I think this year helped her learn how to get more of her teammates involved, so she’s coming with a lot of experience. She can play a lot of different roles for them, she’ll be versatile. … She knows the game well enough where she can, if one thing’s not working in the game, she can make herself valuable by doing other things in the game.”
Locklear’s four-year career as a varsity starter culminated with leading Lumberton to an 18-win season, a second-place finish in the United-8 Conference and a 4A state playoff berth last season.
“Gabby’s been a huge piece of that,” Johnson said. “We talked about that as she was coming in as a freshman, and just kind of the vision she had for herself, the vision we had, what we could do with the pieces coming in around her. Her and Andrea (Brown) did a great job of being seniors and kind of — I tell the girls all the time they were true leaders.”
Locklear will join 2024 Fairmont graduate Myasia Simms on the Trojans’ roster.
“I went to a visit and the campus was nice, it was very simple, and the team, they had very nice team chemistry, and the coaching and the staff were just very welcoming.”
Locklear also had an offer from Methodist, but felt like the junior-college route was the best for her career.
“When I first started off, it felt like, when you’re younger you’re so used to ‘I want to go D-1’ that you fail to realize juco is also just as good as D-1,” Locklear said. “It gives you an opportunity and opens up your options to play.”
Locklear joins Brown as girls basketball players to sign collegiately from Lumberton’s Class of 2025 after Brown inked to Louisburg College.
Sports editor Chris Stiles can be reached at 910-816-1977 or by email at [email protected]. You can follow him on X at @StilesOnSports.
