PARIS ­— Abbie Eastman has basketball in her blood.

Her parents, Troy and Julie Eastman, were standout players and went on to coach the game. Her older sister, Emily, was a starter and won a regional title at Buckfield.

So when a young Abbie was tagging along with her older sister or father, it was inevitable that she would also pick up the game.

“Whether she wanted to be around basketball or not, she was going to have to be around basketball, and she embraced that,” Oxford Hills coach Nate Pelletier said.

Eastman, who has been a four-year starter for the Vikings, proved to be a natural at the game.

“I remember my Dad, when he coached at Jay, I’d go to practice and dribble, dribble, dribble all the time,” said Eastman, who watched her father coach at Jay and at Buckfield.

Pelletier has heard the story from her father about how she didn’t like the Jay girls going easy on her when she was a fifth grader and joining in their practices.

“He said she’d get mad when the varsity kids didn’t want to pass the ball as hard as they could to her,” Pelletier said. “After practice, she’d zing the ball back and forth with her Dad because she didn’t want the kids to be easy on her because she was a fifth grader.”

When her sister won a regional title with Buckfield, it inspired her to want to experience something similar in the sport. Both her parents had also won regional crowns.

“When she went to the states, that was the most exciting thing,” said Eastman. “I knew then that I wanted to get to that point. I wanted to be able to play in front of all those people.

“I knew at that point that if I wanted to get there, I needed to take it seriously and really practice hard.”

By the time she was a freshman at Oxford Hills, she stepped right into the lineup and has been an integral part of the Vikings ever since.

“Coming in as a freshman, one thing you knew she brought to the table was her ball handling skills,” Pelletier said. “I don’t know that there are many players in the league that could defend her. The way I saw it was that nobody could take the ball from her.

“Over the years, she’s really developed a shot and developed going to the basket. She’s really become the total package.”

That first year with the Vikings, upperclassmen helped Eastman get accustomed to the varsity level and taught her what it took to compete.

“It was scary at first,” she said. “That group of seniors, they took me under their wing. They showed me how you needed to practice hard to get to the (Augusta) Civic Center. That was the only time I went to the Civic Center. Now I know how hard we need to work to get there again.”

As a senior, Eastman is serving as the kind of leader that helped her when the roles were reversed. She’s been a captain since her sophomore season and is determined to help the Vikings produce a season to remember.

“This year I really want to be a scorer but also lead the team in general and be a calming person on the floor,” Eastman said. “When I’m out there I want to be able to take those younger kids now that I’m a senior and show them what to do.”

Eastman missed most of the summer season because of a knee injury. She tore her meniscus while playing AAU and didn’t realize it for the better part of four months. She had surgery in July. She ran and played on it without issue during soccer season. Her absence forced her fellow Vikings to play without her and that might have made the team stronger this winter.

“Everyone has improved so much during the summer, especially when I didn’t play all summer,” Eastman said. “Now I’m not having to do so much. I can let everyone else do their job too.”

Eastman was an all-conference player last year and averaged about 14 points and seven assists. With a balanced group that includes senior Alex Rowe, a fellow all-conference pick, classmates Molly Johnson and Kelsey DeBlois and returning juniors Brooke Murch, Crystal West and Claire Gregory, Eastman might not have to shoulder as much of the scoring load as last year. It might allow her to distribute more and make the Vikings more balanced.

“We’re actually asking her to do less,” Pelletier said. “Last year she was asked almost to do too much for one single player. She did everything in her power to do it. This year we’re asking her to be that point guard again, that floor manager and distribute the ball like I knew she can.”

[email protected]