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West Jordan • About the only time West Jordan junior forward Lejla Hadzialijagic gets nervous on the basketball court these days is the millisecond before the opposing team's announcer blunders her last name.

Born in Austria to parents of Bosnian descent, Hadzialijagic moved to the United States and eventually West Jordan. While her road to West Jordan was circuitous, her path in basketball has been a steady ascent since picking up the game in the seventh grade.

Hadzialijagic notched a career high of 15 points in the Jags' 48-40 loss to Kearns, and the rapidly improving junior attributes her success to offseason work.

"I played on a traveling team this summer and because of that, it just seemed like I was in the gym every day," she said.

Hadzialijagic came to Jags coach Carlson Boudreaux as an extremely raw ninth-grader. Boudreaux said he couldn't wait for her basketball knowledge to catch up to her speed and athleticism.

"We knew she had a lot of learning to do, but we ended up bumping her up to varsity as a sophomore because she was just so athletic," he said. "When she wants to, she can be a terrific defensive player, and she's a better scorer than she gives herself credit for."

Despite individual improvements throughout the team, West Jordan was 0-3 coming into the week, losing close games to Mountain View and Kearns after struggling through quarterlong scoring droughts.

Hadzialijagic said the team with just one senior, Annie Oliver, needs to up its effort to get over the hump.

"We have to maintain our intensity for a whole four quarters and just play more comfortably when we have the lead," she said.

Boudreaux knew he was watching a player develop in his program who had a passion for basketball, but he found out only recently her true following of the game.

"We were at practice a few weeks ago and Lejla started throwing out statistics about Syracuse and other girls teams and we as coaches were just dumbfounded," he said. "Just from that, you can tell she really loves the game."

West Jordan travels to West on Friday for a nonregion showdown with the Panthers. —

Jags in a jam

It's not just the public-address announcers who have trouble with West Jordan junior Lejla Hadzialijagic's last name. Jags coach Carlson Boudreaux said he still has trouble with it during stressful moments and simply refers to her as Lejla. Born in Austria to parents of Bosnian descent, Hadzialijagic picked up the game in the seventh grade. In her most recent outing, she notched a career high of 15 points.

Despite coming into the week 0-3, Boudreaux said his players haven't thrown in the towel. He attributes a lot of that toughness and desire to remain competitive to the lone senior on the Jags' squad, Annie Oliver.