Mikayla Boykin was in middle school, already an emerging basketball star in Clinton, North Carolina, when a college coach came to watch her in open gym.Playing one-on-one against her brother Michael, who is 13 months older, Mikayla refused to back down. The game got so physical that the two youngsters nearly came to blows.I was thinking, This is not good for my family, said mom Nicole Boykin. My husband called the college coach to apologize. But [the coach] said, I loved it! [The coaches] loved her competitiveness.Michael Boykin is now a 6-foot-1 freshman guard at Division II Barton College in Wilson, North Carolina.Mikayla, a 5-9 senior combo guard at Clinton High, is rated much higher and has a scholarship to Duke. Despite missing the past two high school seasons due to knee injuries, shes the No. 20 prospect in the espnW HoopGurlz Top 100 for the 2017 class.As a freshman, Boykin showed what she could do, averaging 26.6 points, 9.8 rebounds, 4.5 steals and 4.2 assists for a 24-4 team. She was the player of the year in Sampson County and made second-team all-state.In my 16 years of coaching, shes by far the best player Ive ever coached, Clinton coach Chris Owens said. Shes the type of leader who makes teammates better.Boykin, healthy once again after enjoying a successful AAU season this past summer with the Carolina Flames, seems poised to have a big senior year.When she first got back from injury and was only at 70 percent, she was still the most explosive player in the gym, Flames coach Arne Morris said. Thats how talented she is.Cheerleader for a dayThe Boykin parents -- Tim and Nicole -- had it all figured out after the birth of their first two children.Tim, a former high school football and basketball standout, was going to pal around with their eldest child, Michael, and take him to the gym. Nicole was going to put Mikayla in cheerleading and, once she got older, they would get their nails done and take shopping trips to the mall.There was just one problem: Mikayla was having none of that.Mikaylas brief cheerleading career started at age 4 at a football game ... and ended a couple hours later.She sat on the floor and folded her arms, Nicole said. She didnt do even one cheer.At halftime, Nicole approached her daughter to find out if Mikayla knew the cheers. As it turns out, Mikaylas ability to memorize cheers was not the problem at all.Here was the issue: I always did stuff with my brother, Mikayla said. It felt awkward not to be on the football field with him.After Mikaylas protest, the Boykins got the message. Her cheerleading career ended abruptly, and she signed up the next day to play basketball at her local recreational league.Mikayla and Michael immediately became a dynamic one-two punch on the basketball court. In many games in their early years, they would score all of their teams points.By the time Mikayla was in seventh grade, she had become a big deal in recruiting, according to her father. At a middle school game, Mikayla had a 33-point fourth quarter while Duke and North Carolina coaches sat in the stands.And by the summer of her eighth-grade year, Mikayla had committed to Duke.Morris, her AAU coach, was concerned she was making her big decision too early.I said, Are you sure? Thats when I saw how mature she was, Morris said. She broke it down for me. She was thinking of what kind of job she could get after basketball. She was thinking of the connections she could make at Duke.Mikayla is from a small town. Its one of those places thats tough to make it out of, but she recognized the value of a Duke degree.Tim Boykin said academics have long been a priority for Mikayla, who has a 4.0 weighted GPA and wants to major in business administration. She wants to own a company with her brother, who is also majoring in business.There is nobody that we know personally who has come from Clinton and gone to school at Duke, said Tim, emphasizing how special this is for his daughter.She is looking at college like a trade-off: Im going to trade you my basketball skills, and [Duke] is going to teach me what I want to learn. Stronger and better?Mikayla likes to rap and often comes up with lyrics along with her dad. How good a rapper she is depends on who you ask. Teammate Ashlyn Williams said Mikayla often tries to trick her by telling her she created a rap that actually already belongs to an artist such as Drake or Meek Mill.With basketball, however, there is no denying Boykins talents. Williams said she first met Boykin five years ago at an open gym. Williams had already heard about Boykins skills -- Clinton is a small town of about 9,000 after all -- but she hadnt seen her play.When Williams walked into the gym, it didnt take her long to find Boykin.She was shooting 3-pointers in warm-ups and barely missing, Williams said. It was pretty obvious who she was.I introduced myself, and she said, Im Mikayla. I said, Yeah, I kind of figured. But as gifted as Boykin is, she has had to deal with considerable adversity. In the summer after her freshman year, she went up for a layup, and her left knee buckled during an AAU tournament in Tennessee.I blacked out, Boykin said. There were 20 seconds that I still dont remember. I dont remember my mom coming over.When I actually got myself together, I just saw the Duke coaches staring at me from across the court. They looked calm, like they knew I would be OK.Boykin wasnt so sure.For the first month after ACL and MCL surgery, she was depressed, according to her mother. But after that, she got on track and made it back for the 2015 AAU circuit. Thats when she was reinjured when she bumped knees with an opponent in a Virginia tournament, causing her to miss her junior season.Now Boykin is back, and she claims her left leg is even stronger than her right. Shes hoping to lead Clinton to its first state title since 1990.However, she and her teammates now have a new issue to deal with -- Hurricane Matthew, which tore through North Carolina, ripping through the roof of the Clinton gym. The court was flooded, and Clinton likely wont be able to use its home gym this season.Boykin, who works a part-time job at a local park, donated money to a fund that helps victims of the hurricane.It hurt me to look around and see a lot of people flooded in, Boykin said. I wanted to help with the cause. Henry Ellenson Pistons Jersey . They hope to persuade the other team owners and commissioner Roger Goodell to put pressure on Redskins owner Daniel Snyder to drop the nickname they find offensive. "Given the way the meeting transpired," Ray Halbritter, an Oneida representative and leader of the "Change the Mascot Campaign," said Wednesday, "it became somewhat evident they were defending the continued use of the name. Stanley Johnson Jersey . "Theyve both been real good," said Babcock. "Havent changed our minds." A decision has seemingly been made - Sundays Group B-deciding tilt against Finland ahead - but it could not have been an easy one. 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That came on the heels of Bryan Murray taking the unusual step of going into the locker room at the Prudential Center and addressing the players himself.George Ford is not surprised rugby obsessed England team-mate Owen Farrell has made a stunning return from the back injury that delayed the start to his season. The childhood friends are set to continue as twin play-makers when South Africa visit Twickenham on Saturday, with Ford operating at fly-half and Farrell at inside centre.Farrell missed the opening six weeks of the season through a niggling injury that prevented him from kicking, but marked his comeback with a man-of-the-match performance in Saracens 33-21 victory over Toulon on October 15. England vs South Africa November 12, 2016, 2:00pm Live on Get Sky Sports Get a Sky Sports pass I wasnt surprised by Owens form. He would have been on top of things constantly even if he was not training to his full capacity, Ford said.He is obsessed with the game. Hed have watched the games on TV and hed have been having input with his team at Saracens.Mentally he would have been on it and I am sure physically he would have been doing as much as he can to put himself in the best position he could for when he returned.I am sure you would have seen hes playing briilliantly and picked up where he left off in Australia.dddddddddddd Maro Itoje is up for World Rugby player of the year along with Ford and Billy Vunipola Farrell is one of three England players shortlisted for World Rugbys player of the year award, alongside Billy Vunipola and Maro Itoje, with the winners announced on Sunday.There have been some outstanding performers in the team and those three especially. Other players could have made it as well, Ford said. Watch NOW TV Watch Sky Sports for only ￡6.99. No contract. The reflection of that is the way the team has gone. 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