On a team filled with talented scorers, the one who knows how to pass the ball is the most important player of all.Sporting knee-high socks and a white wristband on her left arm while clapping her hands and saying "Let's go ladies!" during Friday's preseason practice, Amanda DeMartino '06 leaves no doubt as to who the point guard and the leader of the women's basketball team is.

Though she averaged only five points per game last season, DeMartino's 3.6 assists per game, as well as her on-court strategizing, make her an irreplaceable part of the Judges' offense.

"She's the unsung hero of this team," coach Carol Simon says. "She keeps everything in control at a nice, level pace"

DeMartino is the kind of player who really thrives off of making those around her better.

"I get such satisfaction from making that great extra pass and having somebody score a basket, because you feel like you contributed to that point," she says.

DeMartino learned her first important lesson about basketball at a young age: persistence is key. After not making her elementary school team in fifth grade, she gave it another shot the next year, making her middle school team as a sixth-grade starting center. That year, her team won the league championship, and she never looked back.

"It was a really cool feeling for me to be a part of a team that was the best," DeMartino says. "Since then, that desire in me continued."

After making the switch to point guard in eighth grade, DeMartino started as point guard for Monsignor-Donovan High School, a private school in Ocean County, N.J. She still beams when describing her first experiences as a point guard on a varsity team.

"I had the best year because I felt so cool playing on this basketball team," she said. "Older kids knew who I was."

DeMartino transferred to Rumson-Fair Haven High her sophomore year for academic reasons. After a difficult first year both on and off the court, everything turned around her senior year, as she helped her team win the state championship and reach the New Jersey Tournament of Champions.

DeMartino remembers the experience vividly.

"When we won the [State Championship], I'll never forget that drive home," she says. "The fire trucks led us, we had an escort through town, and people were outside cheering for us. It was really, really cool."

DeMartino came to Brandeis because it offered her the chance to play regularly while also being strong academically, she says. In her rookie season, DeMartino struck up an off-court friendship with another rookie, Sierra Yaun '06, a relationship that characterized the kind of support she would continue to have for all her teammates.

"When basketball wasn't going well, she would always make it better," Yaun says.

As an economics and philosophy double-major, as well as a member of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee, DeMartino doesn't find it hard to stay busy.

"I've definitely had to work hard, but when I get a challenge I work hard at it. So even when things are tough, I know that I need to buckle down," she said.

As unique as DeMartino's play on the court, and her personality off it, may be her wardrobe. In her junior year of high school, while in the mall with her father, DeMartino noticed some high socks on sale and decided she wanted to get some purple-striped socks for games. She decided to continue the tradition once she came to college, but had to find blue and white colored high socks to match Brandeis' colors. Last season's UAA Rookie of the Year Jaime Capra '08 thinks the high socks match DeMartino well.

"I think that's [DeMartino's] personality in a nutshell," Capra says. "She has a great sense of humor."

This season, DeMartino will once again run the Judges' offense while also acting as a senior leader. Former teammate Danielle Fitzpatrick '04, who became Brandeis' all-time leading scorer while leading the Judges to their first ECAC title in 2004, believes DeMartino has always had the qualities to be a leader.

"She works her butt off," Fitzpatrick says. "As a point guard, you're the general of the court, and she's become a great decision maker. The team really looks to her for that."

DeMartino needs only fifty assists this season to break the all-time school record. But DeMartino doesn't concern herself with personal goals. Instead she sets her sights much higher. DeMartino says that her ultimate goal this season is not just to make the NCAA tournament but to go all the way and win a national championship.

It certainly won't be easy for the Judges to accomplish that goal, against a grueling conference road schedule that has derailed their NCAA tournament hopes the last two seasons.

"It's going to take a lot of hard work, and it's not going to be easy, but I think if everyone gets it in their heads that it is possible, even though it's very hard to get there, we can do it," DeMartino says.