RICHMOND—Her surname, appropriately, can be translated from Spanish as “she abridges.” Jessica Escorza has had an abridged career at Freedom High School, wearing Eagle colors in her freshman and senior years only.

In between, she spent one season at Notre Dame Academy in Middleburg, and the next at Paul VI Catholic High School in Fairfax, challenging herself with and against high-level players in the private ranks.

As a Dragon sophomore, she was on a team loaded with Division I talent; it finished as one of the top prep squads in the country. As a Panther junior, she earned an All-Washington Catholic Athletic Conference honorable mention.

But the thought of being an Eagle again was never far from her mind.

“Leaving was very hard. But I would still go to the games,” said Escorza, who attended Freedom games unbeknownst to coach Jason Eldredge or center and best friend Kelsey Buchanan. “Everything comes full circle.”

The circle began to close near the end of her junior year, when she asked Eldredge out to lunch.

“We went to this little place in South Riding, and I told him I wanted to come back,” she said.

Escorza wanted to recapture the team togetherness that she had experienced as a Freedom freshman, even though she never thought then that the Eagles would go on to be two-time state champs.

“I missed the bond we had, even out of basketball. We were all so close, and I hadn’t really had that since then,” she said. “In the end, I just needed it, and it turned out to be the best thing ever for me.”

Escorza credits Eldredge’s encouragement with making her the player she is, one who has parlayed her deft passing skills and 3.8 GPA into a scholarship to Wofford College.

“Even when she wasn’t with us, she was still there with us,” Eldredge said. “When she came back, I knew that it was going to be fine, because she wanted to be here, she wanted to work hard for the team, and she wanted to win.”

Escorza graduates as just the third Eagle ever to sign a Division I women’s basketball scholarship, all within the last two years. She also owns Freedom’s single-game assists record with 12.

But more importantly, Escorza helps her original high school win a state title, and she enjoys that sense of kinship she saw as a freshman.

“I could not be more happy to be with this team. They really have become my second family.”

Escorza also got to play with Buchanan again, just as they did for three years with the Virginia Magic of the Amateur Athletic Union, just as they did as Eagle freshmen.

“She leaves with some of the best memories that anyone could ever have, and that’s what I wanted for her,” Eldredge said.

An articulate young woman, Escorza waxed philosophical about being a state champ in her return to her original school.

“It just shows me that everything happens for a reason, that I was meant to come back this year to be with this group of girls and work toward a state championship,” she said. “Winning it is just the best way to end my senior season.”