DeWitt, N.Y. -- At the Autry family's house, the basketball hoop serves as the focal point.
But that doesn't mean Nina Autry, the youngest of Syracuse basketball coach Adrian and his wife Andrea's four children, hasn't tried to convert her family members to a different sport that involves a ball and a net.
Nina is a senior on the Jamesville-DeWitt girls lacrosse team. She will join her father in the JMA Wireless Dome next season, not as a forward on the basketball team but as a defender on the women's lacrosse team.
As her family shoots hoops at home, she practices alongside them with a lacrosse stick and a bounceback net.
"I try, but it doesn't really click," Nina said. "Because we have a basketball hoop in our front yard, so that's all they're going to do."
On Tuesday evening, Nina and Jamesville-DeWitt beat Central Square 17-6 on senior night to move to 14-2 and likely secure the top seed in the upcoming Class C sectional playoffs. There were custom pins for each senior parent with photos of their daughters, "big head" posters with every senior's baby pictures plastered on them, and even custom disposable water bottles with a team photo on the wrapper.
For Adrian and Andrea, it was their last high school sports senior night as parents. Oldest daughter Aliyah graduated from Syracuse in 2017 and oldest son Adrian Jr., who was a walk-on for the Syracuse basketball team, graduated from SU in 2019. Youngest son Trey just finished up his sophomore season on the basketball team at George Washington.
Nina tried lacrosse for the first time when she was in first grade, but quit after a couple of years to pursue other sports, namely soccer. When modified lacrosse coach Tracy Parker asked Andrea if eighth-grade Nina would be interested in getting back into the sport, Andrea was doubtful, but after some convincing, Nina picked it back up and quickly grew interested.
From jumping up the benches at the Shoppingtown Mall movie theater at three years old to running in the grass outside the Carmelo Anthony Basketball Center when she was five, Nina's parents could always tell she'd be a great athlete.
"She would literally beat Trey (racing), and he was three years older," Adrian said. "But she would just laugh, so she wouldn't finish it."
She didn't just outrun her older brother.
"I did it once and pulled a hamstring," Adrian said. "And that was it."
Like everyone else in her family, Nina has always been focused and competitive, Andrea said. But unlike everyone else, she never took to basketball.
"Growing up around it all the time, I wanted to do something different than just basketball," Nina said. "I never really got into it."
Adrian said he never tried to pressure her into playing the sport he's made a living out of, but he realized how little she cared for basketball when he bought her a pair of Paul George's "PG" signature shoes. She wore them to the gym once.
"She really just wanted the sneakers," Andrea said.
Nina tried soccer, tennis, volleyball and more before lacrosse stuck. Her parents remembered watching her on the field at youth softball games, playing with the dirt, picking flowers and doing handstands. That wasn't the sport for her either.
But when she started playing lacrosse again in eighth grade, she learned quickly. Jamesville-DeWitt moved her up from JV to varsity as a freshman to fill a hole in the midfield, and she's played defense, her natural position, ever since.
She's an aggressive and tall defender who can blow past players with her speed. That's what her parents liked the most about watching her play in the midfield, but they acknowledged she's more comfortable on defense.
"She's fast and strong," Red Rams head coach Megan Murphy said. "She communicates well."
And she's shown Adrian a thing or two that he hadn't quite seen from his two basketball-playing sons.
"She can keep her emotions in check. The two older ones?" Adrian said with a laugh. "You'll never know if she's having a good game or a bad game; she's got a good demeanor about her."
In the stands on Tuesday, Adrian was careful not to cheer loudly, lest he risk a scowl from Nina on the field. But he was invested.
"Get that!" he said when the Red Rams battled for 50-50 ground balls, just like he would at an Orange basketball practice.
"We got numbers!" he said when Jamesville-DeWitt forced a turnover and went out in transition.
"No way," he said when Jamesville-DeWiit failed to connect an ambitious pass. "If she would've caught that one, that would've been nice."
Jamesville-DeWitt normally plays goal music from its loudspeakers when someone on the team scores, but the normal operator was out with strep throat.
"Can't believe they don't have music on," Adrian said in the first quarter, as the Red Rams started scoring one goal after another to build up a sizable lead. "I gotta go find out what's up."
Sure enough, as the second quarter began, Autry emerged victorious from the press box, while "Glory Days" by Bruce Springsteen blared across the field.
"We got it figured out," he said.
As the game went on, Adrian sang along to "Give it Up," by KC and the Sunshine Band. And when "Empire State of Mind" by Jay-Z played, he sang along to that one too.
By mid-third quarter, he was cold and asking whether the concession stand was selling hot chocolate.
He was a dad at a lacrosse game.
And come next year, he won't have to go far, or go outside, to attend Nina's games. The Autry family had no familiarity with lacrosse before Nina started playing it, Andrea said. But they've been learning.
Adrian said he sees similarities to basketball on the defensive end when J-D plays man or zone, and similarities on the offensive end when the Red Rams run weaves and screens.
Some of the intricacies of the game still elude him.
"He mentioned hitting the gap," Nina said. "And I'm like 'that's not a thing in lacrosse.'"
"I got a good fan understanding," Adrian said. "I know when to boo, I know when to yell."
When her siblings are home, Nina occasionally passes back and forth with Trey, who played lacrosse in middle school. Adrian said he's thrown the ball back and forth with her once or twice when she's come with him to the Melo Center to work out.
"He's probably held (a lacrosse stick)," Nina said with a laugh. "He probably doesn't know what to do with it, though."
Adrian estimates he's been to five or six of Nina's games this year, the most he's been able to attend in a season. Trey and Adrian Jr. have attended a couple as well. And Andrea has been a fixture in the stands, home or away, cold weather or not. She said it's nearly time to retire the huge blanket she brings with her to every lacrosse game.
When J-D played a frigid early-season contest against South Jefferson in driving rain and snow, Andrea poked fun at Adrian for watching the game from the car.
Nina first heard from Syracuse women's lacrosse head coach Kayla Treanor in the fall of her junior year, and after attending a practice and receiving her offer, she committed just two days later.
It's always been her dream to attend SU, she said. She'll be majoring in broadcast and digital journalism in the Newhouse School.
And before she heads off this summer, she's going to give her family more lacrosse reps.
"Definitely more pass and catch with them," Nina said. "And then maybe we can go on from there, throw them into some ground ball drills or something."