NATCHEZ — Trinity Lady Saints head coach Fay Minor and her point guard, Jasmine Ivory, have known each other for a long time.

So when Minor came to the decision to have Ivory lead the team from the point guard position, she was able to do it with ease.

“She is my floor general,” Minor said. “She is good at keeping everyone in line. She can back up the offense and slow it down, and she can speed it up. I really like her floor leadership.”

Ivory said playing for Minor when she was in just the third grade at the Boys and Girls Club was one of the reasons that she has continued to play basketball. Another, it just runs in the family.

“We had a team there,” Ivory said. “I have all older brothers, and I’m the oldest girl, and they made me want to play. It was fun, and I enjoyed it. I wanted to always beat my brothers.”

Now Ivory is beating plenty of opposing players on the court, and a big reason why is her ability to handle the basketball and quickly scoot past defenders.

“When I saw her ball-handling skills, I said ‘It is going to be a great year,’” Minor said. “If you don’t have a ball handler on offense, you’ve got problems, but she brings that all to the table.”

Ivory said she’s always been a good dribbler, but that she puts in a significant amount of time to continue to be successful.

“You’ve got to work at it,” she said. “It is hard and takes a good bit of time.”

Ivory is also a threat in the scoring department, constantly putting up double-digit points.

“You have to penetrate and drive,” said Ivory of what it takes to be a good scorer. “You’ve got to be aggressive and can’t be scared.”

Although success was nearly immediate for Ivory this season, she admitted that she was nervous heading into it, knowing she was going to be a key player and control nearly everything on the floor.

“It is cool, but this is my first year being in control like this,” she said. “It is very different. I had to get used to playing with different people, and that was hard. It still kind of is, but it is getting better.”

Just a sophomore, Ivory still has plenty of basketball left at Trinity, but she has already begun eyeing the next level in athletics.

“I want to go to college and continue to play,” she said. “I really like Ole Miss.”

For now, though, Ivory will have to continue to lead her team. And she said she hopes to get back to where they were last year — the state tournament.

“It was exciting because we had been playing together since we were little,” said Ivory of the experience. “We all knew each other’s strengths, and it was fun because we worked so hard to be there.”