Eagles’ Bernard is girls basketball player of the year

By Mario Sarmento
SPORTS EDITOR

Two years ago, Sasha Bernard decided to transfer from Grandview Prep, where she had starred on the basketball team in her freshman season, to Atlantic High.

It turned out to be the best decision she said she’s made in her young life.

This season, Bernard averaged 16.7 points per game and 7.5 assists, and she led the Eagles to the Class 6A regional final.

For her efforts, she is the 2008 Boca Raton News Player of the Year.

“I always wanted to come here,” she said. “It was a personal decision that I had made, that I wanted to come to my home school, so I transferred.”

It helped that Bernard already knew many of her new Atlantic teammates, including Kaneisha Saunders, the 2007 Boca Raton News Co-Player of the Year.

What Bernard brought to the Eagles on the court was easy to see. “Speed and intensity,” said Atlantic coach Nicole Johnson.

Bernard has improved her game in each of the last two seasons, learning how to stay disciplined in Johnson’s up-tempo offense.

This year, she added a consistent jump shot to her playmaking and defensive abilities, as evidenced by her 58 percent success rate from three-point range.

Atlantic stumbled to an 0-2 start, but Bernard helped rally her team to a 25-2 tear the rest of the season which included the Eagles’ third straight district title under Johnson.

“It wasn’t like a panic, we just had to come together more as a team,” Bernard said. “We weren’t all the way there as a team.”

Bernard is more than just a basketball player though; she’s a great all-around athlete.

Her father is Delray Beach legend Jasper Brown, who also made his mark at Atlantic and went on to earn a baseball scholarship to the University of Tennessee.

“He helped me a lot,” she said. “Then again, he didn’t want to force me to play basketball. He showed me how to be a leader.”

Bernard said she hears a lot about how great her dad was, but she said, “I just really don’t care too much (to hear about that).”

She first played organized ball in fifth grade, where she said it was defense, and not offense, that drew her attention. It’s still that way today.

“I like guarding people and playing with other people,” she said.

Her talent is such that Johnson said Bernard will be one of the best players at the collegiate level.

“I believe Sasha will have the opportunity to be a conference player of the year in the Big Ten, ACC, Big East, or whatever conference she ends up in,” she said. “She has that type of ability. She will lead her team to the NCAA Tournament.”

Bernard has been getting offers from Division I schools, but she said she’s going to let the process play out and make a decision on where she wants to go next year. The only thing she’ll concede is that she’d like to attend an out-of-state school.

But before she gets to that point, Johnson said Bernard still has work to do, particularly with her conditioning and becoming a more vocal leader.

“I told Sasha, you’re giving teams 22 minutes of hell, if you could give them 30 minutes, you would be like a Tasmanian Devil,” Johnson said.

Bernard recognizes this and said she will work on those two weaknesses in the offseason, with Johnson, a certified personal trainer, helping her with the latter. Bernard has formed a strong bond with her coach over the last two years.

“She’s helping me, she’s getting me prepared,” Bernard said. “She’s a great coach; she’s always there (for me).”

Off the court, Johnson describes Bernard as “gentle. She sometimes tries to act like she’s shy and quiet, but really she’s not. She’s a smart person. She loves church. Her loves are family and basketball.”

What she also has is something all great players have – the burning desire to be the best at their position.

“She hasn’t had everything,” Johnson said of Bernard’s background. “She has the hunger to succeed.”