Playoff-bound Big Macs benefit from power of positive thinking
Katie Roupe/Observer-Reporter Canon-McMillan Kierra King tries to hold on to the ball as Peters Township’s Ally Zuccarini tries to steal during the first half of Monday night’s game.
Canon-McMillan’s Cheyenne Trest is averaging 17.9 points per game to help the Big Macs to a 12-5 record.
It was just more than a month ago when Canon-McMillan’s girls basketball players sat in a quiet locker room following a section lost to Baldwin in which the Big Macs scored only 22 points.
A season that had the makings to be one of the best in program history was slipping from their grasp, so the coaching staff brought the team together and asked each player what they thought they could and should change.
Positive thinking was near the top of the list. Instead of being mentally disappointed by their playoff positioning in late December, the Big Macs wanted to think about what could be accomplished.
Nine games later, the emphasis on positivity hasn’t changed but the results certainly have. Canon-McMillan (9-2, 12-5) took over first place in Section 4-AAAA with a revenge win over Baldwin Monday night and clinched the program’s first playoff berth since 2008.
The Big Macs have won six of their last seven games since the return of head coach Lou Waller, who missed the first 10 games because of a medical condition. The first-year head coach was hired in late August to take over a program that was returning six lettermen, including two of the top players in the section.
“I think our energy since I’ve come back has been elevated,” Waller said. “The girls are just getting more comfortable to the system we initially put in. There was a month or so when I wasn’t there enforcing it, but now they’re all starting to come together. They’re starting to gel as a team.”
Expectations were high for the Big Macs entering this seaso. Though the loss to Baldwin was troubling, Canon-McMillan has asserted itself as one of the top teams in Class AAAA. It is averaging 62.6 points during a five-game winning streak and the nine section wins are a school record. An improved approach on defense has led to a strong transition offense and the key has been junior guard Cheyenne Trest.
An Observer-Reporter first-team all-district selection last season, Trest is averaging 17.9 points per game, but according to Waller, balanced scoring has been paramount. Senior center Becca Turney, a 6-3 Eastern Michigan recruit, has excelled on offense recently, particularly in transition, and she’s not the only one.
Sophomore guard Izzy Allen, junior guard Kierra King and sophomore guard Taylor Waller have all taken advantage of their head coach’s new point of emphasis on offense.
“We really talk about – which is maybe different than most coaching philosophies – if you have an open shot within your range, then shoot,” Lou Waller said. “Everyone has the green light within their range and everyone is taking it. We have been focused on pushing the ball ahead and looking for open teammates. That’s led to a lot of easy buckets.”
Canon-McMillan’s 48-22 loss to Baldwin on the road served as the perfect motivator for a group that believed a playoff spot was attainable, even with a coaching change late in the summer, learning a new system and playing without its coach for almost half of the regular season.
In the days leading up to Monday night’s rematch, Waller wrote the score from that first meeting with Baldwin on the dry-erase board in the Big Macs’ locker room and stressed that this was their turn to dominate in every facet against the Highlanders.
“It’s exciting to be where we are now, but our coaches stress to us that the next game we play is the biggest of our lives,” Turney said. “It’s really picked us up and brought us together. We are excited about going to the playoffs and we really believe in ourselves, but we still have work to do.”
Those outside Canon-McMillan’s locker room would never know there was any excitement following a victory. The Big Macs are allowed to celebrate following a win, but it never leaves the locker room.
Waller wants to keep them humble. He isn’t mentioning the word playoffs or putting unnecessary stress on a team that still has difficult games against Bethel Park and Peters Township on the schedule. The next test comes Thursday against Mt. Lebanon at home, where the Big Macs have not lost a section game this season.
“Starting the year, you have hopes for having a successful season, but we really didn’t know how good we were going to be,” Waller said. “We don’t know how good we’ll be in the future. We want to get better every day and peak at the right time. Hopefully, we haven’t peaked yet. It feels good to be in the position we’re in right now.”