Courtesy Mac Cerullo of The Eagle Tribune

SALEM, N.H. — Alex Nagri was a part of some dominant teams at Central Catholic. She was a state champion in basketball and a member of an elite girls soccer team, but surrounded by so many great players, she never quite broke through as a standout in her own right.

But the Salem resident always had talent, and now a junior at Suffolk University, she's finally getting her chance to shine.

Nagri has emerged as a two-sport difference maker for Suffolk, serving as a captain and the primary goal scorer on the women's soccer team and a tenacious floor general for women's basketball.

This fall, the 5-foot-2 Nagri led the Great Northeast Athletic Conference in scoring with 19 goals. She either scored or assisted in every game that Suffolk wasn't shut out, and on Sunday she tallied an assist in Suffolk's 2-1 upset of Johnson and Wales in the GNAC Quarterfinals.

Not bad for a former walk-on who didn't even start on her high school team.

"You get walk-ons every now and then, but you never expect them to be a captain as a junior and the leading goal scorer in the conference," said Darren Lloyd, head coach of Suffolk women's soccer. "She's definitely a talented player."

Nagri originally planned to only play basketball at Suffolk. She was heavily recruited by women's basketball coach Ed Leyden, who said he loved her competitive nature and attended more than a dozen of her senior year games to make sure he got her.

"We've had a lot of luck with Central Catholic kids, I like the competitive fire they bring, and that's what we saw in Alex," said Leyden, a North Reading resident. "I saw her as an impact player and the fact that she really guards people, she's quick, strong, she uses her shortness as a weapon, she can get into people and press them full court."

But sometime after committing, Nagri got the urge to give soccer a try too. Initially, she wasn't sure how it would turn out.

"Going into college, I thought I couldn't start at Central so how could I start in college?" Nagri said. "But Central is so dominant that any of those girls could start at Division 3. I started with Division 1 girls at Central so I needed that first year to realize I could play at this level."

After scoring four goals as a freshman, Nagri enjoyed a successful sophomore season, scoring eight goals, and has now broken out as a full-fledged star. She also averaged 7.5 points per game as a sophomore last winter for the basketball team, scoring a career-high 19 points in a GNAC quarterfinals win over Norwich, and she is expected to take on a larger role this season as well.

One challenge of being a two-sport athlete, however, is managing the period where the two sports overlap. Soccer runs from August to November, and basketball starts on Oct. 15, so the two weeks where she's doing both tend to get pretty busy.

"I go from 6 a.m. soccer practice to class to basketball practice at night, unless we have a game," Nagri said. "I don't really have a social life from August to March, but I love it and I'd never give it up for anything."

"She handles it great," Leyden said. "We talked about it before she came to Suffolk and my feeling is she's a soccer player in the fall and a basketball player in the winter, so whatever she gives me as far as when the seasons are blending I take, and she kind of directs that." 

When she's not busy with soccer or basketball, Nagri is either in the gym or working toward her finance and accounting double majors. She's also interned at Torromeo Industry in Methuen, and after graduating she hopes to take a long tour of Europe.

But in the meantime, Nagri is keeping focused on the task at hand. First, Wednesday's GNAC semifinal matchup with Albertus Magnus, and then after soccer eventually ends, helping lead the women's basketball team to another successful season.

"I think this year will be good," Nagri said. "I think we'll make a run and I have high hopes."