Fast-forward to college, where the former rivals are now not only two key members of the MSU women’s basketball team’s three-person freshman class, but also roommates.

“It was real weird because, you know, you don’t like (Schiffauer),” Poole said. “Like, Boardman was a good team for a high school team and you want to beat the best team and she was their best player, so you didn’t really like her — not as a person, but as a player.”

Chances are it wasn’t just Poole and the rest of her team that didn’t like Schiffauer the player. Aside from being Boardman’s best player, she also was tabbed as the best player in the state, earning the Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association’s Division I Player of the Year award following a senior season in which she averaged 21 points and 10 rebounds a game.

For as much as Poole disliked playing against Schiffauer, opponents also had fits with the McKinley guard throughout her four-year career, as she led her team to a 20-4 record her senior season and averaged 16.5 points a game.

But now that high school is over and the two are in East Lansing as teammates, the past is the past.

“It’s good and it’s fun,” Schiffauer said about her and Poole’s transition from rivals to teammates and roommates. “We joke about the past, so we have a good time.”

Although the two are only freshmen, MSU head coach Suzy Merchant is expecting big things from Poole, whom she called a “playmaker” and Schiffauer, a “blue-collar, hard-workin’, four-man that can face up and she can run like the wind.”

At this point in the preseason, it’s too early to determine how much playing time Poole and Schiffauer will see for the Spartans. No matter what the roles of the freshmen, Merchant said players one through nine are showing that it’s going to be tough to pick who plays and who sits.

“It’s very competitive and intense in practice, and I can tell you that I feel like the energy and competitiveness in practice is like night and day (compared to last year),” Merchant said. “It’s loud, it’s aggressive, it’s attacking — it’s just a different feeling in that gym.”

Colorado native Alton feeling at home in Mich.

As a high school senior in Colorado, Taylor Alton dreamed of coming to MSU.

She never knew why she wanted to wear Green and White, and, even now, as Alton prepares for her first season on the MSU women’s basketball team, she can’t point out the exact reason why she became a Spartan.

“There was always that influence to try to get back here,” said Alton, whose grandparents live in Petoskey. “My dad has always wanted to come back here and just … I don’t even know the exact reason. Coming here was something I’ve always wanted to do.”

Although many students who travel halfway across the country to a new school in a new state have to deal with homesickness and unfamiliar surroundings and people, Alton said her few months in East Lansing have gone smoothly.

Not only are Alton and her teammates getting along great, the 5-foot-11 freshman guard/forward also has the support system of her family to get her through her first-year college pains.

Although Alton’s grandparents are more than 200 miles away in Petoskey, her parents — Jim and Karene — are right down I-96. They moved to the Grand Rapids area around the same time the fall semester started.

“They have sacrificed so much for me and I’m blessed to have the amazing parents that I do who can actually make that work and who are willing to come out here and follow me through all of this,” Alton said.

If Alton proved anything during her prep career, it’s that the move should be well worth it for her parents. During her senior season, Alton led Highlands Ranch High to a 25-3 record and Class 5A state title — while the Falcons also finished the year ranked No. 7 nationally in the USA Today Super Top 25 rankings and top 10 nationally in the final Rivals.com poll.

That winning résumé, as well as Alton’s high basketball IQ, are two key reasons why Merchant is excited to have Alton in an MSU uniform for the next few years.

“She’s really someone I thought was just a utility player that can do everything,” Merchant said. “She is in the right spot all the time, so I think what she’s going to bring during her time and her growth as a player is doing things right, being in the right spot and understanding the game.”

After missing last year, Johnson expected to be playmaker in first season

Not many people around the Big Ten know about 6-foot-1 redshirt freshman forward Lykendra Johnson.

That soon could change if Johnson lives up to the enormous potential Merchant sees in her.

“She really has a great feel for the game and she’s so athletic,” Merchant said.

“She can play facing up, she can play with her back to the basket. … She has the ability to make people around her better, she can go coast-to-coast and she’s going to be a big part of what we do this season.”

Johnson came out of high school as a four-star recruit and the sixth-best power forward in the country according to All-Star Girls Report, but had to sit out last season for academic reasons.

Because of her absence from the court, Johnson often struggled to find her role on the team.

“I was around them because we lived on the same floor and they kept me updated on what was happening,” Johnson said of the rest of her recruiting class. “I was a part of it, but at the same time, I wasn’t.”

Because of her time off, it has taken Johnson a while to catch up and regain the grasp of a sport that she dominated for most of her life.

As Johnson mainly focuses on being “blue-collar” and bringing intensity and encouragement to the team, Merchant said she can slowly see Johnson rediscovering the player she was — and will be again.

“The first few practices she was kind of feeling her way, but after a whole year off, it’s kind of interesting to watch her — the lights are kind of starting to come back on and she’s getting a feel back for the game,” Merchant said.

“She’s a player; there’s no question the league is going to be surprised by some of the things that she can do.”