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Lauren Hill, inspirational women’s basketball player who battled cancer, dies at 19

Lauren Hill

AP

AP

Lauren Hill, the inspirational Mount St. Joseph’s women’s basketball player who played despite battle terminal brain cancer, died this week, according to her nonprofit, The Cure Starts Now.

She was 19 years old.

Hill was diagnosed with DIPG, a deadly form of brain cancer, after she committed to play her college basketball at Mount St. Joseph. She petitioned the NCAA to allow her team to play a game prior to the season, and the NCAA acquiesced.

She ended up scoring in her college debut, and would go on to score 10 points in four games that she played. Eventually the disease would make her too weak to play, but she was named an honorary coach for the program around the same time that she was admitted to hospice care.

DIPG may have taken Lauren’s health, but it never killed her spirit. She raised more than $1 million for DIPG research by launching campaigns like Layup 4 Lauren Challenge, which capitalized on the virality of the Ice Bucket Challenge.

You can still donate to her cause at The Cure Starts Now.

RIP Lauren.