Lauren Hill dies after fighting tumor to play college hoops
By JOE KAY, Associated Press
Apr 10, 2015 7:26 AM CDT
FILE - In this Nov. 2, 2014, file photo, Mount St. Joseph's Lauren Hill, left, smiles at Pat Summitt after receiving the Pat Summitt Award during halftime of her first NCAA college basketball game against Hiram University at Xavier University in Cincinnati. Hill is using her limited energy and her final...   (Associated Press)

CINCINNATI (AP) — Lauren Hill, a freshman at a Ohio university who fought an inoperable brain tumor to play college basketball, has died. She was 19.

Brooke Desserich, co-founder of Hill's nonprofit foundation The Cure Starts Now, told The Associated Press that Hill died at a hospital on Friday.

Hill's fight to not let her diagnosis dictate her final days rallied her Mount St. Joseph University team behind her and convinced the NCAA and others to move up her team's season opener to allow her a chance to play. She made two layups in the opening game.

Along the way, she became known simply as Lauren, someone who had a knack for encouraging others to make the most of every day by the way she persevered.

She also helped to raise more than $1.5 million for research into cancer.

See 3 more photos