Eight years ago, Abbey Whildin watched from the stands as her sister helped the Marian girls basketball team reach the district finals and the state playoffs.

During that postseason run, Cindy Hassler reached the coveted 1,000-point plateau.That moment left a lasting impression on Whildin, then a fourth-grader. In fact, when her sibling hit the milestone, Whildin vowed that someday she would do the same thing.On Jan. 29, Whildin fulfilled the promise she made to herself nearly a decade ago. When the Fillie hit a pair of free throws in the first quarter against Weatherly on Senior Night, she added her name to that list of 1,000-point scorers."My sister scored 1,000 points in high school, so ever since I watched her, when I was little, I knew I wanted to score 1,000 points, too," Whildin said. "I worked as hard as I could to do that.""It was very exciting because all my friends and family that came to see me on Senior Night were here for my 1,000th point."Whildin entered the contest needing eight points to reach the magic number. She wasted little time closing in on the mark, hitting a pair of 3-pointers within the game's first three minutes.At the 1:54 mark of the opening period, the Coaldale native was fouled in the act of shooting and was sent to the charity stripe. After hitting the first attempt, she knocked down the second to set off a celebration with her teammates."Yeah, I knew the situation. I've had a reputation the past couple years of not doing too well on foul shots, so it was pretty nerve-wracking, but I made them anyway," said Whildin, who actually shot 64 percent from the stripe a year ago and is at 68 percent this season. "Hitting the first one lessened my nerves a bit. I tried not to think about it too much, because I was more focused on the game, but I knew that if I would make it I'd be a 1,000-point scorer.Whildin became the 20th player to reach four digits while wearing a Fillie uniform, although all her points haven't come as a Marian player.After playing her first two seasons for Panther Valley, she transferred to the Hometown school and helped her new team claim a District 11 championship."You almost have to start as a freshman to be a 1,000-point scorer," said Marian head coach Paul Brutto. "And of course, she did that at PV. That's a tribute to her hard work and her basketball ability to be able to step into the starting lineup that early in her career. Then she just carried that over to here."I give her a ton of credit because she came from a place where she was the leading scorer to here, where that really didn't really matter to her. She was willing to make the pass to an open teammate, and she didn't force a lot of shots. She just let the game come to her."As a Panther, the offense usually went through Whildin. She scored a combined 573 points in her freshman and sophomore seasons before switching schools."Playing at Panther Valley was definitely an experience for me because I started right away as a freshman," Whildin said. "At PV I was always the leading scorer and always had the ball in my hands. At Marian ... there were better people than me on the team, so we worked hard at playing as a team."Whildin is back to being the leading scorer again, averaging just over 12 points a contest."She's a scorer and a versatile scorer," Brutto said. "She can score off the dribble, and she can score from the 3-point line. When she's really playing well, she does a lot of damage on the offensive boards too."She has a team attitude. And she's just a great kid. She's got a great smile and a great personality. She can laugh at herself and you need kids like that in your program."