Extra Effort: Daneesha Briggs lets her shooting do the talking

Some basketball players like to talk, Daneesha Briggs prefers to shoot her shot.

"Swish, swish, swish," is the sound you hear when you walk into Beddingfield High School's gym in Wilson, NC. The beautiful sound of a perfect shot expresses more than words.

"I normally don't say much," Briggs said. "Sometimes in practice when I know we can do better I try to bring some energy to the team."

It's easy to lift a team's spirits when every shot is going in. Take a January 24th game versus Spring Creek where Briggs hit thirteen threes tying a NCHSAA record. She finished with fifty points tying a school record and didn't even play the whole game, a 71-29 win.

"That game was great," Briggs said. "It was just the feeling of knowing when the ball came off my hands to know the shots were going to go in."

Briggs shooting is the product of hours of work. In addition to Beddingfield practice she will put up four hundred to five hundred shots a day.

"When you hear coaches talk about the type of kids they want to coach," Beddingfield girls basketball coach and athletic director Jody O'Neal said. "They say I wish I had ten or I wish I had twelve. They are talking about Daneesha Briggs."

Briggs also displays the same discipline and demeanor in the classroom. She is a member of the National Honor's Society and has a 3.8 GPA.

"In the classroom she might not be very vocal, but she is a leader," Beddingfield History teacher Amanda Parrish said. "People can see how she always is trying to get better."

Briggs signed her letter of intent to play college basketball next season for Chowan University in Murfreesboro, NC.

"My dream is to play basketball on a higher level," Briggs said.

Briggs' hard work in the classroom and the court earned her the WRAL Tom Suiter Extra Effort Award.

"It means a lot," Briggs said. "It shows how I am academic-wise and basketball-wise, it shows that I do good in both."