TWIN FALLS — Twin Falls girls basketball head coach Michael Amaya didn’t realize the first time he met Jaycee Jensen until years later.
Jensen’s mom, Jennifer, was Amaya’s insurance agent about a decade ago, and he remembers seeing Jaycee running through her mother’s office with toys.
It wasn’t until he took over as the Lady Bruins head coach in 2021 and saw Jennifer Jensen that he realized he had met Jaycee Jensen.
When he was reintroduced to Jaycee Jensen as a basketball player, Amaya noticed her work ethic and how much work she was willing to put in. He pulled her into his office and told her four key words.
“I believe in you,” Amaya said.
It was a testament to Jaycee’s work ethic, which is one of the reasons she signed to play at Rocky Mountain College, an NAIA school in Billings, Montana, on Monday afternoon.
People are also reading…
“It lifts the weight off of me,” Jaycee Jensen told the Times-News about signing. ”I’m so excited to finally play basketball and not feel like I have the weight of trying to impress people. Now I can just play basketball.“
Jaycee Jensen is a player who is always willing to put extra work in. It doesn’t matter if it’s early in the morning or after a Twin Falls boys game. She will shoot whenever she can. It doesn’t have to be a certain amount of shots, just enough to feel like she accomplished what she needs to.
“I want to be satisfied,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how many I shoot. If I have an off day and they’re not going in the rim, I’ll take a break for 10-20 minutes, work on something else and come back. If I’m not satisfied I’ll stay here three, four, five hours if I have to just to be satisfied.”
What stands out immediately about Jaycee Jensen is her shooting. It started as a way to score when she would play against her older brothers. When she tried to drive for layups she would get her shot blocked. Fast forward to her senior high school, and she’s a threat to square up and knock down shots from well beyond the 3-point line.
“She is a walking bucket,” Amaya told the Times-News. “I’ve never coached a player, boys or girls, that when she gets it going with her shot, she is on. Once Jaycee hits two in a row everyone on the team is like we need to feed her, let’s keep it going.”
Jaycee Jensen knew she wanted to attend Rocky Mountain almost immediately after stepping on campus.
She liked the team and the coaching staff, and the fact that she can take classes there that will help her reach her goal of becoming a firefighter.
While she’s excited to get out there, first Jaycee Jensen will finish out her senior year playing with a group of girls she’s played with for years.
“I’ve gone to school with them my whole life and known them my whole life,” Jaycee Jensen said. “Being able to be on a court with them and just play basketball is like therapy to us.”