Hello and welcome back to Let's Talk Choctaws with Meeby and Kienna!

This week we had the pleasure of sitting down with Moriah Hurst, a senior forward basketball player from Magnolia, Mississippi. She is the only senior on the team and looks forward to playing her final season in the spring.

Moriah starts her week off with a 7:00 am conditioning and practice on Monday mornings. She then has class before heading to 3:00 weight training with her team. With the season shift and the new coach, every week is different and subject to change. She usually has Tuesdays off and they just added a Saturday practice as well. They work out in shifts in individual groups; around eight people with the guards and then eight people with the posts. The team is grateful to be small enough to still be able to practice together for the majority of the time. "Even in practice, we all have a separate ball that we throw around and we all wear our masks," said Moriah. The basketball team has great chemistry on and off the court. Some of Mo's favorite things to do with the team off-court is to go out bowling or to eat, bonding over their love of food and community. "You know the basketball team- we love to eat," Moriah laughed.

Moriah is a senior majoring in psychology with a minor in business administration. She looks forward to graduation this spring and either going to graduate school for family counseling or pursuing sports psychology. "Psychology of sport would probably be my favorite class this year," said Mo, "just because I never really knew the steps of going further with it, but taking the class online gives me a closer look at what they do." She also has been enjoying her physiology class.

Mo loves being a part of the team. "My favorite part is the sisterhood that it brings," she said. She also appreciates how different people are brought together from all over the world to work together. "It's amazing how our different personalities can come together to where we're in sync on the court and we move as one," she said.

Every athlete has an origin story, and Mo's starts at a First Baptist Church in the first grade. She's always been a tomboy and athletically inclined. "My first grade teacher's church was doing Upward Sports, and she gave out pamphlets about it," said Mo, and she recalled racing home to ask her parents if she could be involved. "Most of my other friends wanted to do cheerleading, but I chose basketball." Her parents were all for it, and the rest is history.

There are plenty of good memories to reflect on while we wait patiently for the spring season. We had a good time reliving the Lady Choctaws' victory over Union- "Who actually won the GSC," Moriah told us. "The first game we beat them by 5, but the second time we beat them by 26." (Let us remind you, dear reader, that this is also the game in which Mo scored a career high of 26 points.) The Lady Choctaws' former head coach, Coach Duke, was elated after the win. "He was dancing, and it was really funny to see, you know, an old white guy dancing." Mo laughed. But on a more serious note, experiencing the pure joy of winning is something that the team will never forget, especially beating a team that was nationally ranked.

Through talking with Mo, we were able to see her laid back sense of humor and her strong work ethic. She is fiercely committed to her teammates and her schooling. Even as a senior, her excitement to learn still shines through. She brings a sense of harmony and leadership to her teammates, and we are excited to see her close out her final season next spring.

Thank you for reading, and be sure to join us next Monday for our next guest, Hannah Creel of the Lady Choctaws softball team.