By Scott Nickerson
Elmore/Autauga News
Grace Downey is leaving Prattville High School as a decorated athlete, outstanding student, and active community leader. She was a member of the Prattville girls’ soccer team that advanced to the Class 7A Final Four in 2022, and she was captain of the Lady Lions basketball team that advanced to the Class 7A Final Four in 2023. She finished high school with an amazing 4.478 Grade Point Average.
As a Junior, Downey helped the Prattville girls’ soccer team to win the Class 7A Area 3 Championship. The Lady Lions advanced deep into the playoffs, with victories over Smiths Station and Foley in the first two rounds. After falling behind by two goals against Fairhope in the Final 4, Downey scored a goal and almost came up with the equalizer in the final moments.
“My team and I had worked so incredibly hard to get there. They had two goals on us and in the last five minutes I finally put one in on them and almost had another as their defense got lazy. I am most proud of this moment because it showed we were not a team to give up and we would keep fighting to the very last seconds.”
Downey was the captain of the girls’ basketball team as a junior, and again as a senior. She was named to the 2023 Class 7A Regional 3 All-Tournament Team after the Lady Lions defeated the Montgomery Vikings and Enterprise Wildcats in the playoffs, advancing to the Final 4 in Birmingham. While playing a guard position on offense, Downey was usually picked to defend the opposing team’s biggest player.
She recalled one of her favorite moments on the hardwood was when she shared the floor with her two sisters in the final home game of her junior year.
“The seconds that mattered the most were when I got to play with both my sisters. Marie, my older sister had an injury that kept her from playing the whole season, and Eliza my younger sister had just been pulled up from JV to get exposure. In the last seconds of the game, Coach D put us all in to let Marie score her last point of her high school career which we all had a hand in. She made the last goal of the game and ended the game with a win.”
Downey described Lion Walk as her favorite memory as a student at Prattville High School. “Walking through Prattville Primary and the Junior High gave me the opportunity to see my past teachers and classrooms as well as see my youngest sister and brother at their schools with signs and congratulations. Walking through Prattville High’s halls was surreal as it amazed me how many people were genuinely excited for the class of 2023. I loved the camaraderie as 300 of my peers linked arms and got to sing the alma mater one last time.”
While not in school or playing sports, Downey maintained an active role in the community. She attended East Memorial Baptist Church, was a small group leader in the youth group, volunteered in the Children’s Sunday school class for K4-K5 children, and helped with the Awana program. She also helped make valentines for nursing home residents, adopted a family for Christmas, sewed up dresses for Operation Christmas Child, ran a baseball camp for Field of Dreams, and redistributed wedding flowers to people in the hospital.
All that, and Downey still maintained a 4.478 GPA, and cited AP Chemistry as her favorite subject. She has earned numerous scholarships totaling more than $35,000, to include the ALFA Foundation Scholarship, Alabama Cattlemen Association Scholarship, Poarch Creek Indian Scholarship, University of Alabama in Huntsville Academic Excellence Merit Scholarship, and the YMCA-FCA Willis Bradford Scholarship and Horace Powell Scholarship, among others.
Downey has decided to attend the University of Alabama at Huntsville and pursue a degree in Chemical Engineering with possible minors in Nuclear Power Generating Systems or possibly Business Engineering Technology.
No matter what she decides to focus her studies on, if Downey approaches it with the same determination and desire to succeed as she has exhibited in academics and athletics at Prattville High School for the last four years, she will add more honors and awards to her already impressive resume.
See more photos below.
