“I can do whatever I want, despite the height difference.”

Standing at 5 feet and 5 inches, she repeats this confidence-boosting mantra on the court.

“It’s also about the mentality,” sophomore Indiana Pak said. “If you go into the game thinking, ‘I can’t do this because there’s girls a foot taller than me,’ you’re not going to score and you’re going to be intimidated.”

Agility. Speed. Gut instinct. Pak uses these characteristics to outmaneuver and outplay even her tallest opponents.

“Whenever I see bigger girls, they tend to be slower, so I use my quickness to get by them to either score or create shots for my teammates,” Pak said. “If they come out to guard me, I can just quickly go by them. If I have to penetrate, I usually use a quick floater to shoot over them.”

While these skills help her play her position as point guard, her communication skills are just as important. As a point guard, she has to bring the ball up the court, run the plays and make sure other teammates are positioned correctly on the court.

“When telling my teammates what to do and what position to play, I sometimes struggle with how I should say it and the tone of my voice,” Pak said. “I don’t want them to take it the wrong way because I want to be someone they can look up to and trust whenever they’re on the court. That’s one of the biggest issues I face because when you’re on the court, you’re tired, you’re exhausted, you’re kind of frustrated. Calming yourself down and talking to them in a reassuring tone is one of [my] biggest struggles.”

Having the authority to run plays on court also means a need for powerful leadership and trust from the team and coach for her to call the right play. Her coach has given her the “green light” to run whatever play she sees fit.

“When I see a lot of empty space [on court], I just shoot,” Pak said. “This is all thanks to my coach – he’s letting me have the green light to do whatever I want [on court]. It feels great [to have this green light] because I haven’t really had coaches that really believe in me like my coach does now. I’m very grateful for the opportunities he’s given me.”

Pak’s leadership hasn’t gone unnoticed by her teammates.

Senior Laila Jackson has seen “Indiana step up [as a leader] by scoring on court, being very vocal and being a leader.”

Her fellow point guard, junior Sarah Gregory has witnessed similar skills.

“She’s not afraid to score, she works hard and she hustles, which is a great thing as a leader because when she’s hustling, it pushes everyone else to as well,” Gregory said.

Not only have Gregory and Pak worked together as point guards, they have a close bond that extends off the court.

“I’ve known her since middle school, and we’re actually really close,” Gregory said. “It’s easy to get along [with her]. Our team bonding really affects our outcome on court.”

This strong bond allows them to work well together, whether when practicing with the team or shooting together outside of practice. Together, in the empty practice gym after practice, they put in work that allows Pak to see tangible results.

“We practice more together because we know that we’re the two main ball handlers and that we have to be on the same page most of the time and we just want each other to get better,” Gregory said.

Just as Pak puts in extra work with Gregory, she has consistently put in extra hours to better her performance since the beginning of her career four years ago.

“When I started in sixth grade, my shooting form was disgusting,” Pak said. “It was so bad, my dad had to reteach me. He tried to teach me early so I could fix it to be a good shooter as I am now. We’d go out to the park during the weekends [to practice] and we go before school [or] after school, even after practice my dad and I saved a couple minutes [for extra repetition] to just fix my form.”

Preparing for game time is more than a physical feat. Pak additionally relies on her instincts and mentality to guide her through her play. She has fine-tuned this instinct with repeated practice.

“I had to understand when the right time was to pass, like if help came, there’s more people on me and someone’s open,” Pak said. “I had coaches telling me [when to pass] so over time, it became instinct; with practice it just happened.”

Pak hasn’t always had such confidence in her skills and instincts. After trying out for the first time for her middle school’s sixth grade basketball team, she quit due to a lack of confidence in her abilities.

“I just wanted to give up because I thought I wasn’t good enough,” Pak said. “I just got discouraged because I had a really bad game one time. I just thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ and so I quit.”

Eventually, after her mom rebuilt her confidence and offered her encouragement, Pak found the motivation to play again.

“I found my love for the game again,” Pak said. “When I tried out for a different team, it made me realize that I do have some potential and I can go for this.”

What initially led her to fall in love with the game was seeing others around her play. Growing up watching her step brother play basketball and cheering for the Golden State Warriors pushed her to get her feet on the court and hands on the ball.

“When my step brother used to play, I would follow his steps and just play with him,” Pak said. “Later I got really interested when he would watch Golden State; it’s my favorite team and motivated me to actually try [basketball] for myself.”

Pak still faces obstacles that can cause potential blocks to her motivation, but she knows how to quickly move around them now.

“My biggest challenge is overcoming those bad games, because it can mess with you mentally and discourage you from playing; this is what made me want to quit when I first did,” Pak said. “I have to overcome that now, and I just believe in myself and forget the bad moments.”

Just as Pak has bad moments, her career has been full of many “good moments.” She finds herself gaining confidence with each game and her career getting better and better. One of the times she was happiest and most confident while playing was during a game at Delmar against the Fort Bend Dulles, where she scored 32 points and was nominated as MVP of her team. The older, more confident, MVP-nominated Indiana Pak wishes she could tell her past self one thing:

“Believe in yourself more.”