Harper Melton has helped establish lacrosse in Farmville as a standout for Fuqua School, and Tuesday, she committed to continue filling this role as a Longwood University Lancer.

During a brief ceremony in the Gilmer Gymnasium lobby at Fuqua, Melton signed her National Letter of Intent to play lacrosse for Longwood as a crowd of family, friends, coaches and Lady Falcons teammates looked on.

“I’m just so happy that I can continue playing the sport I love and meeting new people and being able to learn new things throughout my four years at Longwood,” Melton said. “I’m just so excited … to go to a Division I level where they can teach me a lot of different new things.”

She has been playing lacrosse since kindergarten, logging experience on travel teams in Maryland and Richmond in addition to playing at Fuqua.

As far as her goal to play lacrosse in college, “it probably started in eighth grade, because I really wanted to just keep playing after high school, and I wanted to continue my career somewhere where I could get an education and still play the sport that I love.”

She considered playing at Furman University and Mercer University, “but Longwood had something special about it that I loved.”

It proved to be a great fit for her academically, as she is interested in majoring in environmental sciences, but she is also looking at education and noted that Longwood has “a great program for that too.”

The lacrosse side of things also fit perfectly for her at Longwood.

“When I met the coaches and the players, I automatically fell in love with the school,” she said.

She has typically played in the midfield, but she is not sure where Lancer coaches will play her.

“I’m just open to wherever they need me,” she said.

As for who has helped her reach this level of achievement in which she has drawn the interest of an NCAA Division I school and been able to sign with it, Melton said, “I would like to thank my family, my friends and my coaches that have helped me achieve my goal.”

Her father, Fuqua Head of School John Melton, said Tuesday’s signing “was really the culmination of 13 years of hard work and practice and effort on Harper’s part with the support of her family, and we just feel very grateful that she has landed at a school that we’re very confident will both meet her academic needs and feed her desire to continue to play lacrosse at the college level. After looking at a number of different schools, Longwood just really rose to the top as a school that could be the best fit for her in all of the ways as a parent you hope a college will continue the growth and development of your child once they leave home. So we feel very fortunate for that.”