Women’s basketball first-years bond far from home

Fourteen players make up this year’s Lehigh women’s basketball roster.

Not one is from Pennsylvania. 

At the start of the 2024-25 season, one Texas and two California-based first-years on the team bonded over their distance from home. 

First-year guard Sibelle Zambie grew up in Plano, Texas, but she said she decided to commit to Lehigh  because she was drawn to the Mountain Hawk’s style of play and academic culture.

Zambie said the team has a “share it and shoot it” mentality which is focused on sharing the ball and shooting three-pointers. Zambie said this offense fits her collaborative style of play. 

The team emphasizes creating a positive and fun-spirited environment, Zambie said, and everyone strives to become better teammates and leaders.

Fifth-year guard Maddie Albrecht said she started at Lehigh during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, making the transition to college challenging. 

Originally from  Billings, Montana, Albrecht said online classes and fewer students on campus than normal years made building a community at Lehigh difficult. 

Despite this, she said her teammates kept her level-headed.

As a sophomore, Albrecht said she began to connect with the greater athletic community, making friends with athletes outside of basketball. 

Zambie said this year, the team had a six-week summer session, which gave new players a chance to meet their teammates before school started.

“We basically had the whole entire school to ourselves, which allowed us to get a feel for the college lifestyle with no students on campus,” she said. “You really get to know your teammates during this time, too, especially because you get to spend pretty much all day with them.” 

Zambie said this gave her a leg-up on other first-years at Lehigh, as it allowed her to become a leader and help peers adjust to college life when they arrived on campus. 

Being a three-hour plane ride from home, Zambie said she anticipated a difficult transition, but the close-knit team environment — especially with her fellow first-years — helped her acclimate. 

“Us first-years all have bonded really well, especially all being so far away from home and having the same worries about college life,” Zambie said. “We’ve become best friends in such a short amount of time, spending so much time together outside of practice.” 

First-year guard Keshia Vitalicio said all three first-years played in the same club basketball tournament during high school, which was another point of connection between them. 

Vitalicio and first-year guard Bella Bramer, played high school basketball 40 minutes away from each other in California. 

“Our team always says our freshmen dynamic is perfect, which I completely agree with,” Vitalicio said. “We are all so different but mesh so well together.”

With long flight times and a hectic game schedule, Zambie said it’s difficult to go home for the holidays, but the team’s culture has created a family-like atmosphere.

Zambie said their coaches emphasize a “family-first” mentality, frequently checking in on mental health and academic schedules. 

“Our coaches let families come to watch practice or get tickets to the games, which creates this open door policy, where everyone feels like family,” Zambie said. 

Albrecht said she believes being an out-of-state student allows athletes to connect with those that share a similar experience, and the out-of-state students have a unique bond that stems from being far from home.

Albrecht said this has remained true throughout their season so far, noting how well Zambie, Vitalicio and Bramer have adjusted. She said the three first-years have created strong relationships with one another and the upperclassmen on the team. 

For out-of-state students struggling with homesickness, Albrecht said reaching out for help and  remembering that everyone deals with similar feelings is reassuring. 

“Everyone goes through this tough transition and I wish I’d remember this message more my freshman year,” Albrecht said. “If you can, finding people outside of your sport, in classes especially, can be really helpful, too.”