Cara Thomas excelled in three sports — field hockey, basketball, and lacrosse — at Northwestern Lehigh.

More importantly, she excelled academically.

She also learned how to deal with pressure when as a freshman she had to follow her sister Erika, who was a 1,000-point scorer in basketball.

She took all of those things in stride and eclipsed expectations.

Now, she is going to narrow her focus as she enters the next phase of her life.

In basketball, Thomas leaves Northwestern as the school’s all-time leading scorer with a phenomenal 1,537 points — leaving the old record of 1,450 points behind.

She also has a large collection of medals to show for the success of the teams that she played on at Northwestern.

Her achievements on the court, which included leading her team to a 24-5 record and a berth in the state playoffs, also led to her being named this year’s Times News/Lehigh Valley Health Network Girls Basketball Player of the Year.

“I never had these goals of scoring as many points or having the success that I have had. I just came in wanting to play well and help my team,” said Thomas, who finished this past season with a scoring average of 18.07 points per game.

“Obviously, I thought about scoring 1,000 points because my sister did it, but I never thought of being the all-time leading scorer or anything like that.”

Thomas’ field hockey career has been one of leadership where she has excelled and also helped lead that team to success in the postseason. And just this week, she reached the 100-point mark for her career with the lacrosse team.

She admits that there was some pressure to succeed, but she learned to deal with it and just looked to have her own high school athletic career.

“I definitely felt pressure coming in for freshman year,” admitted Thomas, who also led the Tigers this season in rebounds (5.1 per game) and assists (3.4).

“With my sister scoring 1,000 points, I felt like everyone knew who I was and that they were expecting a lot from me, and I didn’t want to disappoint them or disappoint my family. Once I got through that freshman year and I fell into my role, that kind of went away.”

Thomas knows where she is headed to college, but has not made the official announcement yet. Let’s just say that it’s a school with a strong athletic and academic background.

Even with all of her high school success, Thomas has decided that when the lacrosse season ends, so will her athletic career. It’s likely that she will find a pick-up game or two of basketball, but that will be the extent of her time on a court or field.

“I decided that I just want to focus on academics,” said Thomas, who will major in neuroscience and will eventually add a second major. “I feel fulfilled with everything that I’ve done, and I just want to be a student. I guess I have had enough years of organized sports, and I just want to have fun and be able to relax a little.

“It’s been difficult at times, and I’ve had some semesters where I have had multiple AP classes and honors classes thrown in and it’s been difficult. I learned a lot about time management, and spent a lot of my weekends studying and doing homework. It was just one of those things I had to adjust to.”

Thomas is still in the grind of balancing sports and academics, and hasn’t taken any time to really think about what she has done academically or athletically at Northwestern Lehigh.

Once the lacrosse season and her senior year of school ends, she believes that she will have some time to think about her accomplishments, and all of the memories that she made with teammates and other friends at Northwestern.

“I’m not sure that it has really sunk in yet about what I have done and everything that has happened over the past four years,” said Thomas. “I know I have made some good friends and there are a lot of memories to look back on, but while I’m still in it, I just keep focused on here and now.”

Throughout high school, Thomas has learned about being disciplined to accomplish everything that needed to get done and has also learned how to handle pressure.

Perhaps her biggest accomplishment has been how to be successful and stay humble.