Score, pass, win: Harris does all 3 to earn county POY honors

ST. PAULS — Jashontae Harris has been a key scorer for the St. Pauls girls basketball team for four years now.

But in her senior season, with some good company now gone from previous Bulldogs teams, she had to do a little bit of everything.

She did it well, continuing to score at a high clip, and also helping facilitate the team’s offense in an increased role of leadership. Doing so earned her honors as Robeson County’s Player of the Year.

“We had a lot of young people on our team,” Harris said. “Before this year I’ve always been the youngest, so I had other people to look up to, but once I became a senior, and other younger people came in, it was a must that I become a leader in order for us to accomplish the things we accomplished.”

Harris, a 5-foot-7 senior guard signed to Fayetteville State, averaged 19.2 points per game — a feature that’s been a part of her entire career, as she scored just under 1,500 points over her four years in a Bulldogs uniform.

“I haven’t seen too many females that can score like that,” St. Pauls coach Jaymar Thompson said. “When she hit 3s, her 3s are a little different than everybody else’s 3s, they’re just louder it seems like. … When she came across half court, there’s no where she can’t score from. … She can do a little bit of everything. Female-wise, that’s a once in a — I hate to say generational type of deal, but it’s rare that you get a player like that.”

Harris shot 48% from the floor and 37% from 3 in her senior season.

“I don’t really know how to describe that. I just like to shoot,” she said.

Harris scored in double figures in every game but one this season, with a high of 36 points Nov. 24 against Broughton.

She’s also a prolific finisher at the basket, something that she says took time to develop in her game.

“At one point, driving to the basket and finishing was one of my weaknesses, so it’s something I wanted to work on and get better at as I got older, throughout my high school career,” Harris said.

As a senior, though, she also took on more of an active role in helping teammates score — something that had previously been handled by teammates like Jakieya Thompson and T.J. Eichelberger — even as teammate Zhariana Shipman was the primary point guard.

“I asked her to take on a different role, a bigger, leadership role, and she really brung a passing aspect, she really took a challenge in passing the ball and making everybody better around her,” Jaymar Thompson said. “Every game, she was like, yo, I want to get 10 assists today, so let’s get it. … Once she started thinking like that, the team started changing. We knew she could score, but everybody got to see her passing displayed this year as well.”

And through her play, Harris helped the Bulldogs to another successful season; a share of the Southeastern Athletic Conference regular-season championship marked the fifth-straight year the program has won a conference title, and the Bulldogs reached the fourth round of the state playoffs, including two playoff wins on the road.

“We accomplished many things that many people thought we wouldn’t accomplish, so it was pretty good,” Harris said. “Through all the adversity we kept playing.”

Perhaps appropriately, Harris joins Jakieya Thompson and Eichelberger as St. Pauls guards to win Robeson County Player of the Year honors; Eichelberger did so in 2019 and Thompson in both 2021 and 2023.

“It shows what type of players the St. Pauls program has built,” Harris said.

“In female basketball, if you’ve got a great guard, it’s hard to beat you,” Jaymar Thompson said. “So we’ve been blessed. Some people have guards that can handle the ball, some people have guards that can shoot; we’ve been blessed with guards that, hey, that particular guard can do about everything.”

Harris was previously named as Robeson County Underclassman of the Year in 2022 and earned All-County honors in 2023.

Once Harris graduates in May, she’ll join her cousin Eichelberger in the Fayetteville State program.

“My main goal is just to get there, stay focused and work,” Harris said. “Work, and do what I’ve got to do to become the best player I can.”

“Fayetteville State is getting a D-1 player at a Division-II school,” Jaymar Thompson said. “You tweak a couple things with her and you’ve got something special for the next four years. If she stays focused, stays humble and keeps working, the sky is the limit; she’s going to break every record at Fayetteville State offensively.”