Macie Hanley couldn’t help but hear the chatter at her church.
It seemed like every Sunday, everyone at the service was talking about what one player — Opal Maralit — was doing for Blue Ridge’s girls' basketball team.
“Every time I’d go to church, I heard a lot about how Opal was playing over at Blue Ridge,” said Hanley. “Everybody said she was dominating over here.”
Hanley had something in common with Maralit. The 6-foot-1 rising senior was a star player for the Greenville Hurricanes homeschool basketball team.
That’s exactly where Maralit was playing and dominating during the 2023-24 season, before taking her talents to the public school level with Blue Ridge last year.
The Greenville Hurricanes program is in Blue Ridge’s attendance zone. Heading into her senior year — inspired by what Maralit had been able to do — Hanley made the jump.
She’d spend her final season as a Lady Tiger.
“When the opportunity came up for me, I thought about it a lot and talked about it with my family,” said Hanley. “I decided I wanted to give this a shot. I wanted to see if this could be for me.”
If Monday’s season-opening win over Landrum was any indicator, well, Blue Ridge certainly seems the place to be for Hanley.
In her first action as a Lady Tiger, Hanley dropped a massive 22 points and 10 rebounds — a double-double in her first-ever public school game — to lead her Lady Tigers to a 54-44 win.
It was, without comparison, the largest crowd Hanley had ever played in front of. The student section was packed and loud. The volume was high for all 32 minutes of the tight game.
“I was definitely coming into the game with a lot of nerves,” said Hanley. “But all of my teammates here encouraged me, and they’ve done that since I got here and started practicing with them. Even though I started with nerves, once I got settled in, I started having some fun.”
“I didn’t know how [Macie] would respond being in an environment like that,” said Blue Ridge head coach Demarkus Langley. “I didn’t want to place incredible expectations on her right from the jump. But she responded. You see the tools, the size, the footwork with Macie as soon as she steps on the court. We wanted to see if she could do it at this speed and in this type of environment.”
For Hanley, much like Maralit last season, the transition to public school basketball has been seamless. But the social transition — being in a public school atmosphere for the first time in her life — has, interestingly, been even easier.
“I’d never been around public school girls before. So coming into that first practice before the season, I was nervous,” said Hanley. “But as soon as I walked into the gym, I had two girls on the team come up to me and ask me my name. They said they were so glad to have me. Immediately, I felt at home. I knew this was my place, and these were my people.”
“Once Macie got here, it was kind of like how it was with me last year. All of the girls just took her in and made her feel welcome,” said Maralit. “She fits right in with our team. Everyone could tell from that first practice that she was coming in here to work hard.”
Being the stars of the basketball team, one might assume Hanley and Maralit would also likely be stars on campus.
Undoubtedly, they would be. That is, of course, if they were on campus during the school day.
Both are still homeschooled. They come straight from home school to practices and games every day.
And after every big play either Hanley or Maralit makes, the kids in the Blue Ridge student section roar with celebration, even though they may not share a history or math class with them.
The Blue Ridge students — and the community — love watching their two homeschool heroes lead the Lady Tigers’ charge.
“At Blue Ridge, everything about this place gives me so much confidence,” said Hanley. “The coaching staff, the fans, the crowd, they all make me feel like I have potential to be one of the best on the court every night. That’s helped me tremendously in this transition.”
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