STONY BROOK, N.Y. — Gigi Gonzalez briefly got thrust into significant point-guard duty as a freshman with the Stony Brook women's basketball team last season, when teammate Kaela Hilaire was sidelined for nearly all of three games with an injury.

Even though Gonzalez has plenty of highlights ahead of her on the court, she similarly has been gathering experience at a young age in a career she intends to pursue after basketball.

An aspiring writer from a talented musical family, Gonzalez has penned songs for her mother Susan Johnson Gonzalez's group, Company B.

One song, "Love," is soon-to-be-released by her mother's American Latin freestyle band.

Gonzalez collaborated with her brother, a rapper who goes by the stage name Stash Gnarly, on another song for Company B that has not yet been released.

"I like listening to the beat of the music when I first hear it and coming up with lyrics that flow," Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez did write and perform her own song, "Down For Me," a few years ago. She still links to it in her Instagram bio. She also appeared in commercials at a young age, including for Food Lion supermarkets.

But her passion is songwriting. She is majoring in business and minoring in music at Stony Brook with an eye toward that career.

Gonzalez's mother relocated from Jacksonville to Miami at 18 years old and was one of the founding members of Company B.

The group's first single, "Fascinated," created a stir in the Miami nightclub scene and eventually was re-released by Atlantic Records, at which point it peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 100.

Company B eventually dissolved, but Johnson Gonzalez helped spearhead its resurrection in 2006. The group has continued to perform ever since.

"In the '80s and '90s, that was a really big song for the freestyle genre," Gonzalez said about "Fascinated."

As for basketball, Gonzalez appeared in 21 games and made three starts as a freshman in 2019-20. She averaged 2.0 points, 1.4 rebounds and 1.0 assists per game while peaking with 27-minute performances against Western Michigan on Dec. 22 and against UMBC two weeks later, during Hilaire's brief absence.

That contribution with Hilaire sidelined kept Stony Brook humming en route to a 22-game winning streak — at one point the longest in the nation.

"It was very unexpected," Gonzalez said about getting thrust into significant minutes midway through her freshman season. "I believe that because of the hard work I put in, I was able to help my team in the way they needed to be helped at the time. As a team, we all just got the job done."