Senior guard Bethany LeSueur always had the ability to be a great college basketball player. It just took her third coach to prove it to her.

“Play like the Bethany I know you can be,” Georgetown Head Coach Terri Williams-Flournoy always tells LeSueur.

That LeSueur is Long Island’s top scorer, a two-time state Gatorade player of the year who amassed 3,167 points over her high school career – the second-highest mark all-time in New York State. One thousand of those points came during her freshman year alone. Never mind the fact that she was a three-sport star in high school, also earning awards in soccer and lacrosse.

“She’s the type of player that comes along once, maybe twice, in a lifetime,” said John Dell’Olio, her coach in junior high and high school, in a 2001 Newsday feature.

During her four high-school years, the Garden City Trojans went 121-12 and appeared in the state semifinals three times.

LeSueur was the No. 6 recruit in the nation, said Fox Student Sports. No. 12, said Blue Star. No. 14, said Rivals. Four publications put her in their national all-American lists, and she played in the WBCA High School all-America game, an honor extended to just 20 players.

No wonder she was named New York’s Miss Basketball.

“I always tell her, `I just go back to when I watched you as a high school player.’ I was just like, `Wow,'” Williams-Flournoy says.

That Bethany, however, despite her remarkable high school career, stumbled in her first few steps of college basketball.

LeSueur, who had been recruited by former Georgetown head coach Pat Knapp, headed to the University of Virginia in 2001. She was expected to make an immediate impact on a freshman-heavy team, starting in the season opener.

But in that first game, versus Hampton, LeSueur could manage only two points on free throws. She was never able to crack the starting lineup again that season.

Then in December, every teenager’s worst fear struck LeSueur: mononucleosis. Although she still played an average of 11 minutes in 22 games, the illness was a big setback. LeSueur finished the season with 2.9 points and 1.6 rebounds per game – and a release to transfer.

“I always had Georgetown on my mind in the first place when I had originally been recruited, so I think that just at that time I really wanted to look to a place where I knew I could fit in,” LeSueur says. Her close relationship with Mary Lisicky (MSB ’05), an old AAU basketball teammate, sealed the deal.

“I really wanted to go to a place where I could be like, `All right, what’s it really like?’ because a lot of times in the recruiting process the only show you the good side of things,” LeSueur continues. “I really wanted to be able to know what the program is like from someone who played in it.”

Knapp was immediately interested in bringing LeSueur to the Hilltop.

“Bethany is a fantastic player,” he says. “When she decided to come back this way … I was very, very happy to be able to coach her.”

LeSueur had to sit out the 2002-03 season, but under Knapp’s wing, things started to look up during the next year. She started all 28 games in 2003-04, scoring 8.3 points per game and grabbing 5.5 boards per game while ranking fifth in the Big East in steals per contest with a 1.96 mark. In Georgetown’s first win over a ranked opponent since 1996, a 70-50 victory over then-No. 23 Virginia Tech, LeSueur tallied 17 points, nine rebounds, six steals and five assists. The team gave her the best defensive player award and the Patricia E. Corace Hustle Award for her tenacity.

“I’ve been real lucky because I feel like I was given a second chance here,” LeSueur says.

But LeSueur would only have one year to play with Knapp, as he left the team to coach at the University of Pennsylvania. It wasn’t until late August that Terri Williams-Flournoy became Georgetown’s new head coach for the 2004-05 season. For LeSueur, it was her third college coach – and her third new system to learn.

“That’s tough. You hear different things expected of you,” Williams-Flournoy says. “It hasn’t been anything consistent for her. To have three different coaches, you’ll definitely hear something different every time.”

Luckily for LeSueur, the third coach was the charm.

“For Bethany, it becomes a little too much of a mind game for her,” Williams-Flournoy says. “I told her, `You’ve got the green light; go out and be the player that you can be.'”

It took a while, though, before LeSueur got into a comfort zone on the court.

“When we first started practice last year … I was just like, `What is wrong with her? What are you doing?!’ She was wide open and passed the ball,” Williams-Flournoy recalls. “I’m like, `What are you doing? I mean, you didn’t score that many points in high school passing the ball to somebody else.'”

But with the encouragement of her team, LeSueur began to build up her confidence again. All she had to do, they told her, was believe in herself.

And, just like that, LeSueur reeled off a 12-game streak of scoring in the double-digits.

“She began to get into the flow of the game, and kind of pretty much became the player that I had seen her being in high school,” Williams-Flournoy says.

LeSueur ended the year with 9.8 points and 5.6 rebounds per game. Her 2.0 steals per match ranked fifth in the Big East while her .574 free-throw percentage was 11th.

Her team chalks that success up to LeSueur’s diligence and dedication. Her fellow players and coaches describe the two-time captain as a hard worker – even a “workaholic” – and a leader by example.

“We all respect her so much,” sophomore guard Kristin Heidloff says.

“She just really brings heart every time she steps on the court,” sophomore forward Kieraah Marlow says. “There’s never a question of her giving 100 percent, and that rubs off on everyone else.”

LeSueur’s teammates and coaches rubbed off just as much on her.

“I think that my teammates and Coach Flournoy and all the coaches kind of helped me almost rediscover my game because, you know, I had a rough freshman year, and I had another coaching change,” LeSueur says. “I think that they just kind of gave me confidence in my game again and … I really thank them for that.”

But even with her newfound confidence on the court, LeSueur remains the quiet and reserved person that she was before.

“She doesn’t get enough recognition,” Marlow adds. “This year she’s definitely going to show how hard she’s been working in the past year.”

Hopefully for LeSueur, that will translate into a trip to the NCAA tournament. To get there, all she needs to do is be herself.