(photo by Jim Lindquist)
After her senior season Taylor Meyer will be trading in her Tiger roar for a Bulldog bark.
Meyer fulfilled a long-time goal Wednesday when she put her signature on a NCAA National Letter of Intent to play basketball for the University of Minnesota-Duluth (UMD) beginning next winter.
"I started to think about playing in college when I was playing with my first AAU team, the Lady Lightning," Meyer said. "My coach was Lumumba Samuels and he encouraged me."
Meyer, a four-year starter for the Tigers who has led her team to two Section 1 championship games, enters her senior season tied with Krista Cordes for fourth place on the all-time school scoring ladder with 1071 points. Only Julie Bauer (1438), Lisa Soweija (1317) and Kirstee Rotty (1126) have scored more.
Meyer has improved her numbers each year, averaging 10.2 points per game as a freshman, 12.4 as a sophomore and 14 per contest last winter. The three-time all-Missota Conference performer has also been a consistent force on the glass for the Tigers, pulling down 5.6 rebounds a game her freshmen and sophomore seasons and eight a night during the 2010-11 campaign.
Meyer said she initially wanted to play at the NCAA Division I level but after visiting Northern Iowa and North Dakota State realized the heavy commitment to basketball might get in the way of her primary goal of earning a degree in veterinary science.
A freak knee injury (torn anterior cruciate ligament) suffered while pulling down a rebound last summer also affected Meyer's eventual choice of schools.
"Once I got hurt, some of the schools who had been interested in me weren't anymore," she said. "I think I learned a little bit about what a business college basketball can be."
In the end, the choice came down to a pair of Division II schools, UMD and Wayne State College, also a member of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. She liked the Nebraska school but once she stepped on the Duluth campus the choice became clear.
"I loved it from the beginning," she said. "They really wanted me to be there and the injury didn't matter at all. They said they liked what they saw of me as a basketball player as a junior and they acted like they wanted me there as a person."
As for the injury, Meyer is currently on limited duty with the Tigers. She meets with her surgeon on Dec. 18 and hopes to get a release for full-time activity before Jan. 20, the six-month anniversary of her surgery.
"They say six months but I have worked hard on rehab and right now my knee feels good," she said. "I guess I'll just have to wait and see what the doctor says."
In the meantime, Meyer intends to do what she can do and support her teammates...and maybe work a little bit on her Bulldog growl for next year.
Taylor Meyer is the daughter of Mark and Penny Meyer of Farmington.
