Julia Martinez
Chicago, Il
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High School: Loyola Academy/ Class of 2019
Club Program: Illinois Lady Lightning Platinum
Height: 5ft 10in
Position: Point Guard
GPA: 94%​
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Julia resides in Chicago with her parents and two older siblings. Being a self proclaimed "gym rat"​ at a young age, Julia fell in love with the game of basketball. Starting in second grade while playing up two grade levels, she dominated every opponent she competed with. Throughout her grammar school career, playing on multiple levels and multiple teams each season, she carried her team to undefeated seasons and consecutive multiple championships. Julia has been playing club ball since 4th grade. First with Hoops Express Flash where her team won Illinois AAU state tournament in 5th and 6th grade and came in a very close second in 7th grade. Starting in 8th grade she moved to Illinois Lady Lightning where she currently plays on the top Platinum team.
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Two and a half years ago, she decided to continue her education and bring her basketball talents to Loyola Academy in Wilmette, IL. Where she was the starting point guard on the varsity girl's basketball team as a freshman. Currently she is a Junior and is excited to be playing her third year as a point guard.
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In her free time she loves to dance and was excited to be able to continue dancing through a class offered at Loyola in place of physical education. She took this class for 2 years, but unfortunately had to stop to accommodate a full academic class load. She misses the formal dance education, but you can still catch her randomly dancing and singing to music all the time.
In the fall you will find Julia hitting hard and jumping high to block on a volleyball court. She is a two sport athlete at Loyola and just finished her third season playing volleyball. She was on the Varsity team this year and was the starting outside hitter. She also makes time to play club volleyball with Northside Out VBC, to keep her skills fluid in the off season. She hopes to play all four years of the volleyball season at Loyola.
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Julia volunteers at Loyola as a shadow guide multiple times throughout the school year. She also does personal tours of the school and happily works open house fairs. This year she is part of a new group of students that were nominated by teachers and staff to form a leadership group call the "LA Way". She is working with underclassmen and teachers through LA's formation classes. This requires extra meetings, homework, and a time commitment to be a leader at Loyola. Last school year, Julia also did "Arrupe" at Loyola, where she volunteered at a nursing home weekly, that specialized in dementia patients. It is part of the Loyola landscape, to do for others. She feels this is a very important part of her life and looks forward to doing more "Arrupe" service this school year along with her "LA Way" contributions.
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