"Ever since I could pretty much walk I've been dribbling a basketball."

Brooklynn Burns' love for basketball came at a young age. Her mom, who played and coached the game, is a big reason why.

“Ever since I was little she's been my coach so she's always been super hard on me,” Burns said. “That's always been like a core memory of our relationship for me; having the same sport that we enjoy and love together.”

“She can play inside, outside,” Lyford girls basketball head coach Teresa Gutierrez said in praise of her star player’s game. “Because she is very physical, that gives us an advantage as well. We're able to use her to guard guards and she can go in there and guard the post if we need her to."

The Lady Bulldogs made the playoffs in Burns' freshman season, but she knew she had to continue putting in the work in the offseason to sustain that level of expectation for the years to come.

"I would go out to the courts with my mom on the weekends,” she said. “Some of the girls from here, we meet up and play pickup basketball games. Playing with boys too really showed me that I need to be hustling more and get quicker.”

Burns made the playoffs again in her sophomore and junior seasons with Lyford, a streak that almost came to an end in her senior year as she was considering stepping away from basketball to solely focus on academics.

"I actually wasn't going to play my senior year but going to games in the summer I couldn't bring myself to not play like I was just itching to get on the court."

Burns came back for her senior season, making the playoffs for a fourth straight year and finishing her time at Lyford with the program posting 109 wins and just 31 losses over her four seasons.

Burns also reached the 1,000-point and 500-rebound milestones for her career as part of a stellar senior season.

"I had no idea that was happening,” she said. “I had no idea I'd reached it. Seeing the team come out with that, I was just so happy and I felt accomplished. That had been one of my big goals for my high school career is to reach that."

Burns says that she plans to continue playing basketball after high school through intramurals to focus on another goal: studying abroad.

“I'll be in Spain and then Italy in the second semester so I'm doing a cool program called Verto Education. I'm super excited about that and then they have partner colleges so I'm looking to transfer into Texas A&M for the rest of my college.”

CHANNEL 5 SPORTS is highlighting high school senior athletes on our Playmaker of the Week segment every Wednesday on CHANNEL 5 NEWS at 10.