Former Shore basketball star vying to win WNBA roster spot on Caitlin Clark's team
Three weeks earlier, 20 or more family members had gathered at the Correa home in Manchester to watch the WNBA Draft, with Leilani Correa selected in the third round, part of an Indiana Fever rookie class that includes No. 1 pick overall Caitlin Clark.
And on Monday, Candace Correa, her husband, Josh, and their three boys were in Gainesville, Florida for their daughter’s graduation from the University of Florida, before the 6-0 guard quickly headed back to the Fever’s preseason training camp, hoping to complete the next step in her rise to the highest level of the sport.
To say it’s been a whirlwind would be an understatement.
“It’s been incredible. Nerve-wracking, stressful, but a lot of fun,” Candace Correa said this week. “I was happy she was able to get to graduation and walk because she put in a lot of time and hard work to get to this point.
It’s the culmination of countless miles spent in a car heading to high school gyms and AAU showcases, before a stellar college career that saw her star for three seasons at St. John’s, before two seasons at Florida that included being named the SEC’s Sixth Woman of the Year in 2024, while leading the league in scoring during conference play.
Now it’s a matter of securing one of the 12 roster spots available with the Fever, with the final cutdown set for May 13.
“I am blessed and thankful for the opportunity, but we’re not done yet,” Leilani Correa said at a press conference in Indiana last week. “They were telling me, ‘you made it.’ And I’m like. ‘I still have to make the team.’ We’re not there yet, but we’re working for it.”
The Fever play their final preseason game Thursday night against the Atlanta Dream at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, with the game available via streaming on WNBA League Pass. The regular season opens on May 14 against the Connecticut Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut, with a game against the New York Liberty in Brooklyn on May 18.
Opportunity of a lifetime
It was an emotional roller coaster ride on April 15 as the WNBA Draft played out, with Correa a big part of the conversation in draft rooms around the league after topping the 2,000-point plateau during her college career, averaging 16.9 points this past season for the Gators.
“I was definitely very nervous all day leading up to it,” said Correa, who played three seasons at Rutgers Prep before teaming with Destiny Adams to lead Manchester to the 2019 Shore Conference and NJSIAA Group 2 titles.
At one point there was talk of her getting selected in the going late in the second round. But as the third round got underway, she hopped in a car with her brother, J.J., a senior linebacker at Donovan Catholic High School who will play at Rowan in the fall, and headed to the store for “some snacks.”
“I asked my sister where they were and said to call them and get them back here,” Candice Correa said. “They were just at the end of the street and turned around. And then they were just outside when she got picked and everyone is screaming and I’m like, ‘get inside!’ “
“My agent called me and I’m like, ‘I’m not even home,’" Leilani Correa said.
The Fever took Correa with the third pick in the third round, No. 27 overall, putting her in a position to become the second former Shore Conference player in the WNBA this season, joining former Manasquan star Marina Mabrey, taken 19th overall in 2019 and entering her sixth season in the league, and her second with the Chicago Wings.
“It was definitely scary, but in a good way,” Leilani Correa said. “I knew at that point I had to grow up. I was going to have to grow up and be an adult and just do what I do, so I’m excited and happy to be here.”
Growing up fast
In many ways, this has always been the trajectory for Correa. She was a force from the moment she stepped on the court at Rutgers Prep, going on to score 1,097 points over three seasons. And in her one season at Manchester, she averaged 17 points-per-game as the Hawks went 32-3.
At St. John’s, she was a unanimous selection to the Big East All-Freshman team, and was a first-team All-Big East selection in 2021.
And it was at Florida where her game reached the next level, thriving against one of the country’s deepest talent pools.
“It’s easy to get complacent where you are, and I didn’t want to do that, lessen myself by being complacent,” Leilani Correa said. “So when I transferred to the University of Florida I wanted to get better, I wanted to be pushed, I wanted to be challenged and tested, not just on the court but off the court as well. And I think being at the University of Florida, it helped me grow up and mature, on and off the court.
“I became a better player, I became a better person, a better teammate, a better leader. And playing in the SEC, there are big girls, strong girls. They play fast, and I think that being in that place helped me to get to where I am. And I feel like if I didn’t make that transition I wouldn’t be where I am right now.”
The personal growth has not been lost on Correa’s mom, who has spent an incalculable number of hours on the road and sitting in gyms over the past decade.
“She was always an introvert, but over the past couple of years she’s been opening up more to me about her feelings and is able to share more about her experience,” Candace Correa said. “Now she’s just so focused. She knows she has worked so hard the past few year to get to this points so I do see a different look in her eye. The leadership she was presenting in Florida. They make you grow up, make you into a woman, a leader, being around others with the same goals and mindset.”
Now Leilani Correa is pushing to grab a front row seat to women’s basketball history, with Caitlin Clark having elevated the popularity of women’s basketball during her record-setting college career at Iowa.
“It’s really a mindset,” she said. “I have to have a strong mindset. In college sometimes you’re like, I don’t want to do this. But here you have to get up and you have to do it. It’s a job. You’re not in school anymore. And I’ve been pushing myself to have that mindset.”
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Manchester's Leilani Correa vying to join Caitlin Clark, Indiana Fever
