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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

PELHAM – Laci Gogan capped off her incredible career with the Pelham Panthers on Wednesday, May 17 when she officially signed with The University of Alabama at Huntsville to play college basketball.

She signed her National Letter of Intent at a special signing day ceremony at Pelham High School on Wednesday with family, friends and coaches in attendance.

Gogan officially committed to UAH in September after receiving an offer from the Chargers in July.

“Pelham is sort of known by Laci,” Pelham girls basketball coach Crosby Morrison said. “And Laci has set the standard of, ‘If you put in the work, if you’re in the gym in the summer and in-season and you put in the work, you can have success, and have success on the biggest stage.’ And she has a legacy of being a great leader, a good teammate, well-liked by all the teams that she played with in the five years that I’ve been here, and was always willing to do what we needed to do to win.”

A six-year varsity player, she started playing for the Panthers in seventh grade before making the starting lineup as an eighth grader. She is a three-time Shelby County Player of the Year and made the All-County First Team for four straight years.

She helped the Panthers reach new heights with their first area championship in school history, a run to the Final Four in 2022 and an Elite Eight appearance in 2023.

During that Elite Eight run, Gogan reached 2,000 points for her Panthers career. She became the program’s all-time leading scorer across both boys and girls teams during her junior year. She also holds Pelham’s single-game points record with 46.

Gogan was a true combination guard for the Panthers, not just making shots, but also facilitating the court as a point guard, drawing the defense’s attention and dishing the ball to teammates to set up them up for success.

In 2023, she averaged 15.4 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game while leading the county in three-pointers.

She has also made the All-State team for the last three seasons, All-County for the last five and was named to the 2023 All-Area 8 and All-6A Central Regional Tournament teams.

Now, she will play Division II basketball just up the road in Huntsville and will look to make an immediate impact in one of the most competitive conferences in Division II, the Gulf South Conference.

Coach Morrison believes that Gogan is the perfect fit for UAH’s style of play and knows she will put in the work to earn her place in the lineup and be successful.

“She’s competitive,” coach Morrison said. “I got the job here at Pelham five years ago, and she was an eighth grader. And just coming in, not knowing anything about her, having our first try-out, our first practice, she was competing at a very, very young age, earned her spot as a starter in eighth grade and throughout the games her eighth-grade year, she would just take over games. And that’s as an eighth grader; she’s not even in high school yet.

“And she continued to have that competitive fire throughout her career, which is why she was so successful and why she led us to the Sweet 16 for three years in a row and a Final Four run last year, and it’s just because she just refuses to lose. And I think that will transfer well to her at UAH. I think that will be a big help to them and their program as well.”