Going beyond the points.
Oak Forest coach Jeff Kelly made a strong case for Janae Kent being the two-time player of the year in the South Suburban Blue.
“She deserves it not just because she’s a great basketball player,” Kelly said. “She’s just a really good teammate, a really good person and an outstanding student. She’s a complete, whole, student-athlete.
“I know the award is about athletics, but I believe it’s about everything.”
Doing the work.
Oak Lawn coach Mark Sevedge said he has never had a player put in more time than Mia Kennelly, a back-to-back player of the year in the South Suburban Red.
“For her four years, even as a freshman and a sophomore, she’d be in the gym constantly,” Sevedge said. “She’d stay with me, stay with my assistant coaches, just getting shots up all the time.
“She has proven herself as a leader of the team because of her hard work. We try to stress that to the freshmen that we have up on the varsity now. We want that to be the example that was set. We hope it becomes more the norm for us.”
Just call them the South Suburban Conference’s dynamic duo.
Kent, a 6-foot-1 guard/forward, averaged a double-double in conference play with 26.3 points and 10.1 rebounds for the Bengals (16-10, 9-4). This season, she had 10 games with 30-plus points and two with 40-plus points.
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Her season high was 46 points on Feb. 4 in a 73-62 win over Hillcrest.
But she’ll be the first to say she didn’t do it alone.
“The support system I have is super strong,” Kent said. “From my parents to my brother to my uncles to my other family to my teammates and my coaches, everyone has been riding with me and supporting me from day one.
“They always keep me going, and never let me stop.”
Kennelly, a senior guard, averaged 15.1 points, 6.9 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 3.8 steals. She led the Spartans (22-6, 13-0) to an unbeaten conference season, including a wild comeback from an 18-point deficit against Oak Forest.
The work? She didn’t mind.
“I came to Oak Lawn as an all-around athlete,” Kennelly said. “But working all four years in the gym with coach Sevedge, the individual workouts and the extra stuff like running in the summer really helped me.
“Hard work beats talent. Just putting all of that work in, I think that made me a better player.”
Breaking through: T.F. South is a conference champion for the first time since 1979. T.F. South (18-11, 10-3) won the SSC Blue by one game over Oak Forest, Lemont and Hillcrest.
Eric Bryce is in his first season as the head coach after three seasons as an assistant.
“We started talking about winning a conference title last season,” Bryce said. “At one point, we were in a position to possibly get it, but then we didn’t get it done.
“From the jump this season, we said, ‘Hey, this needs to be the goal.’ We needed to have goals to make us work harder.”
Youth led the way.
Freshman guard/forward Tariya Wright averaged 12.5 points and 4.9 rebounds. Wright had a stretch where she scored 20-plus points in four out of five games.
Sophomore forward Jaiden Thompson averaged 8.4 points and 5.0 rebounds, while sophomore guard Rayvan Rush averaged 7.1 points.
Balance was the key.
“We kept preaching that to the girls,” Bryce said. “When they first came in, a lot of the girls were like, ‘Man, I’m used to scoring 20 points a game.’ They were used to being the top dog on their team.
“I said, ‘Girls, we’re going to have to share the basketball.’ I told them if we could all average somewhere between eight and 12 points and get seven or eight people to do that, we could score 60 and 70 in a game. And we did that on several different occasions.”
Reaching 300: Argo coach Dan McCarthy won his 300th game on Jan. 27, beating Eisenhower 53-30. He has coached the Argonauts since the 2004-05 season. His victory total includes five seasons as the boys coach at Holy Cross.
During a five-year stretch from 2015-20, the Argonauts won 19 or more games. Chatori Tyler became the program’s all-time leading scorer, with Tadriana Heard right behind her.
“Those were really the turning points,” McCarthy said. “It took many years to bear the fruits of our Junior Argonauts program. But when you love what you do between 8 a.m. and 3 o’clock, you’re willing to be patient and see it through.
“I’m thankful I did. Argo has been a great place to work for the past 18 years.”