With warmer weather and longer days, it’s time to leave the gym behind and head outdoors for a spring season full of sports.

For Lexington senior Izzy Saville, these first few weeks mark a transition from starring on the basketball team to leading the Wildcats on the lacrosse field.

Saville is a talented basketball and lacrosse player. She is a consistent scoring threat and was selected to the 5A All-State team in both sports.

After helping Lexington finish the girls basketball season 18-6, she is now hoping to take the school’s girls lacrosse team to new heights and win a state championship.

“I think this year, we have a really good chance at it,” Saville said. “I think that’s definitely my biggest goal right now.”

Saville averaged 13 points and four assists for the basketball team this year to earn All-State. A few weeks into the lacrosse season, she is second on the team in points, scoring goals and dishing assists. She scored at least three goals in all of the team’s first six games and had a career-high 10 points against White Knoll.

Despite the quick turnaround between sports, Saville has shown little rust on the field. She said the change requires a short adjustment period but playing both sports is usually helpful.

”For basketball, there’s a lot of conditioning, so I would definitely say I’m pretty good with the conditioning for lacrosse,” Saville said. “But I mean, they are both different, so it just takes like a week or two to get back into things.”

Saville has played both sports for years. She started around the same time she moved to Lexington after years of playing other sports like baseball and gymnastics.

“I first started off with gymnastics because my sister did gymnastics,” she said. “That was definitely not for me. I wasn’t very flexible and unable to do a lot of it.”

Once she started playing basketball and lacrosse, it stuck. Saville said both came naturally and while basketball is more demanding, she prefers to play lacrosse. What she values most, though, are the relationships built through both.

“I’ve definitely built some of my best friendships through sports,” Saville said. “Even now, I’m in lacrosse season, I still talk to all my basketball teammates. I see them almost every day. My favorite thing is just winning with them and celebrating after.”

Even her coaches, at both the high school and club level, have become influential figures in her life.

Some of her fondest memories with her teammates include traveling up North for national tournaments, watching the college national championship as a team and most recently, defeating Bishop England and snapping its eight-year win-streak over teams in South Carolina.

All of these relationships with her teammates, coaches and parents have helped instill in her the motivation and ability to work hard and achieve her goals in and out of sports.

Off the field, Saville takes her academics very seriously. She is a straight-A student, a member of the National Honor Society and has taken some of the hardest classes at Lexington, including physics and calculus. Just like with sports, Saville said math just comes naturally.

“I’ve always just been naturally good at it, which is somewhat rare for some students, and most people don’t like it. I’ve just always found it fun,” she said.

Balancing both academics and athletics can be stressful and challenging. Saville said she has had her share of moments where quitting would be easier, but she remembers what her coaches taught her and stays committed.

“You still have to overcome that and look on the bright side,” she said. “My basketball coach [Molly Goodrich] would always have these little phrases for us that if she could tell you were upset or having a hard time, she would just share and it would make you think and just go on to the next play.”

After graduation, Saville will continue her academic and athletic career at Lenoir-Rhyne University, where she will play lacrosse and major in engineering. She made her commitment based on her belief in the school’s coaches and professors to guide her to success.

“I want my professors to care, and I want to be able to ask them questions and things like that,” Saville said. “Also my coach there. She reminds me a lot of coach Goodrich, and she is just someone that I think is going to do really good at that school.”

When not concentrated on school or sports, Saville spends time hanging out with her friends and boyfriend. She goes to the lake with her family, plays pickleball and loves watching movies and TV shows. She recently finished “The Night Agent” and thought it was really good.

With her time at Lexington nearing its end, Saville is hoping to be remembered as a good teammate and better friend.

“That’s a big one for me,” she said. “Passing the ball, being funny, having been there for everyone, being supportive, I just want that to stick around for the future.”

She has a few months of lacrosse left to play and then will finish her academics. Over the summer, she will begin preparations for college and shift her focus to achieving those goals.

“I want to prove myself and show that I am good enough to go to college, and if you put in the work, then you can definitely be a lot greater than you think you can be,” she said.