Wayland Union Girls’ Basketball’s Presley Hudson Named High School Athlete of the Week [Video]

Presley Hudson, a senior who led the Wayland Union High School girls' basketball team to conference and district titles this season, has been named Meijer-97.9 WGRD High School Athlete of the Week.

The 5-foot, 6-inch point guard led Wayland Union to a 23-2 record, a share of the Ottawa-Kent Conference Gold Division and a Class B district title. The Wildcats' season ended last week with a 63-56 loss to Haslett in the Charlotte Regional.

It wasn't the end of high school basketball plaudits for Hudson, however, as she was named runner-up for Miss Basketball to Goodrich's Tania Davis and to The Associated Press' Class B All-State squad.

Hudson averaged 22 points, five rebounds, seven assists and 3½ steals for the Wildcats for the 2014-15 season.

She scored a school record 40 points -- including 31 points in the first half -- in a 65-24 win over Mattawan in February. She holds every individual girls' basketball record for Wayland with the exception of rebounds, Wildcats Coach Martin Howard said.

"She is an amazing talent both on and off the floor," he said of Hudson. "She is extremely humble, a hard worker and loves to play the game of basketball.

"Presley is the first girl to step on the court and the last to leave it. It has been amazing to see her as an unassuming and quiet freshman who rarely talked, to become the epicenter and vocal leader of our team."

She has achieved, particularly this season, despite often only playing about 20 minutes or so per game and drawing other teams' focus on defense. Even with drawing such attention, she still managed to average shooting percentages of nearly 60 percent for field goals, 43 percent for three-pointers and 82 percent from the free-throw line.

"That's the most amazing thing. And a lot of her shots (from the field) are from 15 to 18 feet," Howard said. "She obviously makes her teammates around her better. ... Plus, she's so competitive."

The four-year starter was one of only three seniors on this year's Wayland club, with fellow co-captain Caroline Miller and Morgan Winger the others.

Hudson averaged 16.7 points and 5.8 assists per game in 2013-14 as a junior. She has signed a national letter-of-intent in November to play women's basketball at Central Michigan University.

Her genes might have contributed, too, at least a little. Her older brother, Wes Hudson, was a Wayland Union standout who played college basketball at Cornerstone University; and she is one of six in the Hudson family household. Her father, Mike Hudson, just completed his 23rd season as Wayland Union High School's boys' basketball coach.

“She's been playing basketball since the age of 2 or 3,” Mike Hudson told The Grand Rapids Press/MLive last year. “For the first five or six years, so played with boys, because that is the only teams I could find. But I think that helped her. She's not big, and playing with the boys, that helped in her physicality.”

In the off-season, she plays AAU basketball.

Off the court, Presley is equally stellar with a 4.0 grade-point average.

Congrats Presley and Wayland Union girls' basketball from Meijer and WGRD as well as Channel 95.7, 100.5 The River, 98.7 WFGR and 1410 AM The Touch.