This is the story of Katie Clark’s summer.

It is a summer not common to all 14-year-old girls, perhaps, because it revolves around a winter sport: basketball.

Katie Clark of Bangor comes by her love of basketball naturally. It’s in the genes, you might say.

Her connection to basketball extends all the way back to her great-grandmother, who played it in Boston in the early 1900s. Her grandfather, John Bapst and Maine Sports Hall of Famer Nat Crowley, played and coached it, taking his Lewiston High School team to the New England finals in Boston Garden in 1961.

Katie’s parents competed through college. Her brother, Chip, played for Colby College of Waterville and her sister, Stephanie, plays for St. Joseph’s of Standish.

The Clark name currently appears on two varsity rosters at Bangor High with sophomore Katie and junior Nat. Someday, Katie Clark wants her name on a college roster.

That is why she spends her summer vacations concentrating on basketball. Vacation, to many, means getting away from it all. To Katie Clark, it means getting to all you can.

Saturday, Katie Clark flew home from Ogden, Utah, where her 15-and-under team, the Maine Lightning, finished 3-3 in the national AAU Junior Olympic Basketball Tournament after winning the state age-group title.

Last year, she competed with the 13-and-under team that went to Louisiana. This year she was the youngest of a group of up-and-coming stars.

Not only does she appreciate the level of competition she saw this summer and last, but she appreciates the opportunity to compete with some of the best age-group players in the state.

“You get to play with people you’ve heard about,” she said of her teammates. “It’s kind of hard, at first, because you don’t know if you should pass or shoot or what. You know how good they are and know what they can do.”

Once the team has competed a few times, friendships are solidly formed.

During this summer’s trip to Utah, Katie roomed with three players closest to home: BHS teammate Sara Parker, Allison Cropley from Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield, and Kelly Bowman from Nokomis of Newport.

That bond brings new attitudes to the games of winter. “It is different when you meet them later on after you’ve been on the team with them,” she said. Facing Bowman when Bangor plays Nokomis means that Clark faces the known rather than the unknown: a friend.

Clark had to work very hard to get to Utah, and not on just her game. The trip cost more than $1,000 and the players are required to raise their own funds.

Starting last winter, when she wasn’t playing basketball, she was working varsity boys games to add to her bank account. This summer she babysat and coached younger girls at the city’s park and recreation clinic.

Asked if saving the money and spending it all in one place bothered her, her answer was a quick shake of the head.

“I love it,” she said of her sport, “and I think it is good to go out and play with other kids who are so good because when I come back, I know how I have to work to play that well.”

Clark competed against girls from Indiana, Alaska, and Kansas. She was particularly impressed with the players from the Hoosier state.

“They can do a lot more fancy stuff than the Maine kids,” she said. She was particularly impressed with their passing ability that she described as “pretty advanced” compared to what she sees here.

At 5-foot-10 and growing, Clark plays forward and center for Bangor Coach Tom Tennett and AAU Coach Paul Vachon.

At that height at the tender age of 14, Clark is not neglecting one important aspect of her game a girl her size might overlook. She practices her dribbling and ballhandling every day. After all, she said, “If I end up 5-10, I might be a guard.”

Clark probably has more opportunities than most to perfect her game.

She is a Bangor YMCA baby. She arrived there at the tender age of 2 when her mother, Elanna, first joined the organization as its physical director. Elanna is now the Y’s executive director.

Advancing through YMCA league play, Katie Clark still participates in `Y’ activities. After high school basketball season ended, she competed there in a boys league. She was the only female player.

Asked if she was treated differently from the other members of that team, she responded with another emphatic no. “They’re all my friends,” she said matter-of-factly. “We’ve all played basketball together for a long time. There’s no difference.”

Of course, there is help at home.

If Katie Clark has a heroine in the sport, it is her sister, Stephanie, a former Bangor High star who now graces the court for St. Joe’s. “Stephanie helps me out a lot,” she said. “When she’s at a game, she can see where I need work and point it out.”

It is fortunate that the youngest of this foursome does not feel any unnecessary pressure from within or without, especially following in her sister’s footsteps.

“I think it’s a lot different for me than it was for her,” she said of playing varsity for Bangor High. Clark views her sister’s years as the need for Stephanie “to be the future of Bangor High School girls basketball” and set the standard for others to follow. If there is pressure now, it is to uphold that standard, but it is a one-game-at-a-time pressure she accepts as natural.

She also runs. That’s another part of her summer. Running every day to get in shape for her other sport that starts Aug. 17: cross country. Her goal is to lower her time to 20-21 minutes. Cross country serves her well. It gets her into shape in the fall, and it keeps her going on the basketball court.

Summertime used to mean Camp Jordan on Branch Lake in Ellsworth. That was during the days before basketball.

“Once I started basketball, that was it,” said Katie Clark as she got up, grabbed a ball out of her bag, and headed for the court to shoot around.

Joni Averill is a NEWS Sports columnist.