You could call Elise Berger a Swiss Army knife, a state champion, even Captain Chaos, the nickname she earned for her messy room as a child. As her time at Champlain Valley Union High School comes to an end, you can call her Miss Basketball.
Shelburne’s Berger took the crown this year as the top girls high school basketball player in Vermont, as selected by the Burlington Free Press. The award came on the heels of a Division I championship over St. Johnsbury Academy in March, good for the team’s second straight title.
“We all knew at the beginning of the season that this was going to be tough,” said Berger, who has played organized basketball since first grade. “It was cool that we had six seniors on the team that had been playing together for a long time and that we were able to bring the team together, do all that work and make it all worth it in the end.”
The 5’11” guard averaged 8.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 3.2 steals per game for the Redhawks this season en route to giving the program a seventh Miss Basketball victory. The senior and her teammates also helped send 13-year head coach Ute Otley to her new position leading the Norwich University women’s team with a record 10th Division 1 victory. .
“She’s practically a coach’s dream,” Otley said. Berger was a four-year varsity player and a mature locker room presence who thrived in any role, she said.
Photo by Catherine Morrissey
Elise Berger poses on her home court.
Berger’s victory comes at a time of unprecedented attention on women’s college soccer and its recent superstars such as Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and Angel Reese. Berger is all about getting attention. “I think it’s really cool to see the growth that women’s basketball has had,” she said. “It’s really cool to see that growth and for it to become something nationally important.”
Otley hopes those who tuned in to watch Clark play realized how many women play “at such a high level that it’s really entertaining to watch.”
Berger’s style of play is far from Clark’s high-octane shooting from deep, but he commands similar respect on the court. She is “a field leader who can advance the ball quickly, who knows how to create shots for her teammates and whose presence on the field demands so much defensive attention that she can make the defense do what she wants and create the type of shots he wants for his teammates,” Otley said.
Berger said he likes to attack the glass and do “the smaller things that get people ready and put the team in good positions.” Berger said. Sometimes, Otley had to remind Berger to look for his own shots, too.
Berger is distinguished by his playmaking, Otley said. “We haven’t had a 5’11” girl who can handle the ball like she can,” the coach said. She further: “She has a real pull-up sweater.”
“That combination of ball-handling, size and mid-range play,” Otley said, “made her a unique athlete that we could use defensively in a million different ways.”
His athletic uniqueness goes further: Berger is even better with a baseball in his hand. Not only does she pitch for her high school baseball team, but she has also been selected twice to pitch for the US women’s national team, which she first joined at age 16, the youngest age allowed.
“There are definitely some nerves, but it’s also a real pride, especially being from a small state like Vermont that a lot of people haven’t heard of outside of the United States,” he said. “Being able to show what we can do as a team is great too.”
Berger has committed to play baseball at Bard College. She has been in contact with current and other committed players and is excited to get to Bard and get out on the field with them. “She was definitely looking for a school that had the academics and intensity that she was looking for but was also a supportive place to play baseball,” she said. “Bard was the best combination of the two for me.”
Although he loves basketball — he played soccer throughout high school and mountain bikes — baseball “has always been the most important thing,” said his mother, Elizabeth Berger.
At age 4, Elise watched Lake Monster games from start to finish and, as a child, fell asleep to the sound of baseball broadcasts, her parents remember. She did all the school projects she could with the theme of baseball.
Photo by Catherine Morrissey
Miss Basketball, Elise Berger (right), poses with her coach Ute Otley.
Berger’s father, Chris, is a California native and a big fan of the Golden State Warriors and the Cincinnati Reds. His love of the sport extended to the young Berger, who, raised in Vermont, became a Red Sox fan—an infinitely better choice, he is quick to say, than choosing the Yankees. He also stayed with the Warriors because of their dynastic run over the last decade.
“They have been very supportive of everything I wanted to do along the way,” Berger said of his parents. “Any team I wanted to be on, any training I wanted to do, the different tournaments we needed to go to, it was always, ‘Let’s find a way to make this happen for you.’”
That doesn’t mean there haven’t been challenges along the way. She felt on the same level as the boys in all the little leagues, but as those male classmates grew up, she worried about falling behind. Those feelings continued during his first two years playing for the Bases Loaded Bulldogs, a local travel team that he began playing on at age 13. But by the third year, as she felt more trust from her team, she became more confident. Her throwing improved.
“That year I think I felt comfortable in my role as a pitcher, understanding that I wasn’t necessarily going to keep up with them in terms of speed on the mound, but I had other aspects that made me a good pitcher,” she said. .
It all came down to work ethic. Berger said she is driven by her competitive nature, her hatred of losing and the collective euphoria of the team’s success.
“If I lose because I feel like someone outworked me, that’s something that drives me to keep trying and work harder,” he said.
And that shows us. Her father said, “She spends hours each week doing strength work or conditioning work specific to her throwing muscles. Since high school, she’s been pretty consistent every week. “She is incredibly disciplined.”
In the summer of 2022, Berger had to miss basketball practices due to obligations with the national baseball team. Otley had challenged Berger a few months earlier to be faster and improve her ball handling, and she was concerned that the young standout wouldn’t have time to do it, the coach recalled. But Berger returned that fall with improvements in all the areas Otley wanted, the coach said.
Heading into last summer, Otley challenged Berger to perfect his three-point shot. Once again, Berger came out ahead, his coach said, meaning his opponents in his senior season were forced to respect his shot and take two teams off the post.
That dedication to his craft was present even when Otley met Berger when the latter was a fourth-grader at a basketball camp. “I remember thinking that she was a serious girl, very focused, very focused. She wasn’t there to joke; she was there to learn,” Otley said.
Berger’s mother recalled Elise’s baseball games: “I’m there cheering her on and I say, ‘Hey, Elise, did you hear me cheering?’ and she says, ‘No, I didn’t hear.’ She doesn’t see anyone in the stands, she is simply focused on what she has to do.”
But Berger is not always impassive. “Once you break Berger’s shell, she definitely talks a lot,” said basketball teammate and fellow senior Samara Ashooh. “She is a very fun person and she is always willing to go out and live some random adventure. People say that she is quiet and reserved, but I think that in reality she is a very open and communicative person and she always has a good presence to be with.”
Berger’s mother called her daughter a “chatterbox” at home. The two like to cook together, and Berger loves showing off his 30+ Spotify playlists filled with recent musical finds (lately some country, classic rock, and hip hop).
As Berger enters the more competitive college game, her parents are confident she can handle it. “Our attitude toward college baseball is the same as it has always been,” her father said. “We think she can usually reach the level she needs to and work as hard as she needs to to be competitive, and we’ll see how she does. She will have to earn her playing time just like anyone else.”
In the meantime, Berger said he appreciates the opportunity to contribute to his community. She was invited to throw out her first pitch on opening day this month of the Champlain Valley Little League, the same one she played in those years ago.
“I’ve been able to go back to my community and be a role model for younger girls,” she said. “When I was younger, I knew I had role models that I aspired to be, and being able to meet and play with some of them now has been huge. I hope to be that person for some girls.”
(Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.)
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