Colby Accepts Scholarship to NYIT

Capping a career that started in fourth grade along with fellow teammates Maggie Whitmore, Brooke Obar and Camille Clement, Julz Colby ended her long recruiting process by accepting a full scholarship from Division II New York Institute of Technology on Long Island, NY. Among the schools seriously recruiting her were Assumption, SNHU, St. Josephs, Roberts Wellesley, and UNE since the South Paris native wants to pursue health sciences and nursing.

Colby had an outstanding career for the Maine Firecrackers in which she started in over 150 games and displayed her uncanny ability to finish around and above larger players. According to Firecracker Coach Brian Clement, “Julz was pretty special from a young age and has worked hard on her own and in Firecracker and Oxford Hills practices to maximize her gifts. She runs the show making excellent decisions, is deceivingly athletic, defends well, and can score in a variety of ways. Her ability to handle pressure from some of the top AAU teams in the country was a big part of our success this year. She is a terrific player and there is never one ounce of drama. She just works her tail off and her teammates were ecstatic when she accepted this scholarship because they all knew she earned it.”
Last season the 5’6” Senior led her Oxford Hills teammates to the school’s first state championship in history, exploding for a AA record 34 points. For the season, she averaged 18.2 points, 3.3 assists, and 3.2 steals per game while being named First Team All -Conference, All-State by the Portland Press Herald, First Team All-State by the Bangor Daily News, and Player of the Year by the Sun Journal.

New York Institute of Technology plays in the East Coast Conference and finished 23-9 last season, earning a birth in the D2 NCAA Tournament. Charismatic Coach Kenny Parham first became familiar with the Firecrackers when he coached the Riverside Church Hawks, considered one of the top travel programs in the country. Parham became NYIT’s Head Coach in 2016 and has led them to a 60-33 career record.

Colby becomes the 4th member of her Firecracker class to accept a full scholarship and the 6th member of her class to commit to a college (Maggie Whitmore and Brooke Obar to Bentley, Paige Cote to UNH, Kaleisha Towle to Williams and Carolyn Smith tbd). Over 30 players have the Firecracker organization have received scholarships over the past 6 years.