Princeton University Athletics
Richard Barron Announces First Recruiting Class At Princeton
June 20, 2002 | Women's Basketball
June 20, 2002
Princeton, N.J. - Princeton University women's basketball coach Richard Barron announced his first-ever recruiting class at the University by naming incoming freshmen from California, Montana and Tennessee. Barron, who had a very successful first-season as Princeton's head coach, replaces last year's lone senior with five fresh faces.
The class of 2006 includes two students from both California and Montana and one student from Tennessee. Barron begins his quest to build a championship team with the likes of Becky Brown, Lauren Nestor, Katy O'Brien, Ariel Overstreet and Ali Smith.
Both Nestor and O'Brien hail from California with Nestor coming from Novato and O'Brien coming from Ventura. Nestor, a 6-0 forward from Marin Catholic, led her team to the California State championship and NorCal championship last season. She was an MCAL all-league honoree last season and one of 10 Scholar Athletes of the Year selected by the Marin Athletic Foundation. All five starters from that Marin Catholic squad will be playing Division I basketball next year. "Attending Princeton is all I could have hoped for and more," says Nestor. "I am so excited for all the new experiences and relationships that I will develop throughout the next four years and am eager to contribute both in the classroom and on the court."
O'Brien is a 5-7 guard who finished her career at Ventura High School as the all-time leader in single-season (173) and career (457) assists. Last season, she was team MVP and captain as well as the Channel League's co-MVP. She was first-team All-Ventura County and the CIF Division 2AA Player of the Year. O'Brien scored 1,171 career points in high school and is 10th all-time on the CIF single-season three-point field goal list with 86.
Joining the California duo is a pair of Montana guards. Smith is a 5-10 guard from Bozeman High School, while Overstreet stands at 5-7 and hails from Big Timber. Overstreet earned first-team Class C All-State honors as her team took the district and divisional championships last season. Another 1,000-point scorer in high school, she totaled 1,350 points at Reed Point. Overstreet also lettered in track four years and volleyball three years.
Barron wraps up his first class with Brown, a 6-3 center from Nashville, Tenn. Like Overstreet, Brown competed on the varsity track and volleyball teams as well as basketball. She was Harpeth Hall's first-ever Miss Basketball Finalist and ended her career as the school's top all-time scorer with 1,667 career points. She was a first-team all-state member and team MVP while guiding Harpeth to the State Finals last year.
"The balance between athletics and academics was the one thing that really brought me to Princeton," says Brown. "The athletic program at Princeton is very strong and I recognized a strong competitiveness and will to win in the athletes that really got me excited about playing basketball at Princeton next year."
Barron is set for next year after completing his first season with an 11-16 overall record that equaled Princeton's win totals in the previous two years combined. Barron does lose Lauren Rigney to graduation, but returns last season's leading scorer and distributor in Allison Cahill, leading rebounder Kelly Schaeffer and top three-point shooter in Maureen Lane.
Princeton wrapped up last season by winning three of its last four games and will open the 2002-03 campaign at Baylor on Nov. 22.