The broken finger that Wheeler senior Abby Ordonez suffered in July hasn’t affected her season.
But Ordonez’s attempt to make sure that happened almost prevented it from happening.
“I didn’t get it checked out for three months,” she said. “I thought it was fine. I thought it was just jammed because I jam my fingers all the time, and it was not fine. It was very much broken. It’s still a little messed up now. I was like, ‘Whatever,’ and it was not ‘whatever.’
“It wouldn’t bend, and I couldn’t have it like that forever. I was like, ‘Maybe I should get it checked out.’ But I didn’t want to lose soccer season.”
As it turned out, Ordonez missed about half of soccer season as she recovered with wraps and physical therapy.
“It was weird for a finger,” she said.
To try to avoid further injury to her left ring finger, Ordonez switched from goalkeeper to defender in soccer, and she helped Wheeler win a sectional title.
“If I messed it up, I’d have to have surgery on it, and then I would’ve missed basketball season,” she said. “So it was a little bit of a mess. They were yelling at me at the doctor, telling me I should’ve come in sooner. Then I had to go to a specialist, and he was like, ‘How did you not come in?’ And I was like, ‘It’s a finger. I don’t know.’
“In the cold, it still kind of hurts. I’m in here blowing on it, and they’re like, ‘What are you doing?’ I’m like, ‘I have to warm it up.'”
Ordonez has especially heated up for the Bearcats (10-11, 5-2) since the start of the new year. The 5-foot-4 guard was averaging team highs of 10.0 points, 2.9 assists and 3.9 steals along with 6.5 rebounds before their Greater South Shore Conference win at Whiting on Thursday. But in her previous two games, she posted 18 points, 12 rebounds and six assists against Calumet and then a career-high 23 points, a career-high eight assists and seven steals against Bishop Noll.
In fact, Ordonez had scored at least 15 points in four of Wheeler’s past five games, the four highest totals of her career. In the one game she did not reach 15 points, she grabbed a career-high 16 rebounds.
It’s quite a change for Ordonez, who played sparingly as a freshman and sophomore before becoming a part-time starter last season, when she averaged 5.1 points and 4.3 rebounds.
“Freshman and sophomore year, it was hard,” Ordonez said. “I didn’t have a lot of confidence in basketball. But I loved the sport, so I stayed. Junior year, I felt like I was just there. I didn’t have a lot of confidence. Senior year, my confidence grew once we started balling out. I barely come out of the game now.”
Indeed, she has developed as this season, Rick Gregory’s second as Wheeler’s coach, has progressed.
“I’ve been making my shots more,” Ordonez said. “I’ve been seeing the spots that coach Rick has been telling us to look for in games. Everybody’s starting to move to the right places, so the openings that are supposed to be there are there. My teammates are finishing when I get them the ball.”
Ordonez, who also plays tennis and intends to become a nurse, has even been receiving interest to play basketball in college.
“Abby wants to go on and play college ball, and she has a couple of possibilities,” Gregory said. “She has the ability.”
Ordonez has been instrumental in starting to lay a foundation for the Bearcats, who have their most wins in a season since going 12-12 in 2019-20. They’ve already more than doubled their total victories from last season, when they went 4-18, and have won six straight games and seven of eight after opening this season 0-7.
Ordonez, guard Lexi Cutka and forward/center Megan Vincent are the team’s only seniors and the tri-captains. They’re also the top three scorers.
The Bearcats’ roster is largely populated by freshmen and sophomores. Their two juniors joined the team after not playing since middle school.
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Cutka, who also plays volleyball, earned a starting role as a freshman. But she nearly didn’t return after her sophomore season, citing the losses and the lack of numbers.
“Last year I had to beg her to come out, and thank God she did,” Gregory said.
Cutka hasn’t looked back.
“I’m so glad I stayed,” she said. “It was just a hard process. But I’m just glad we’re building up the program now.
“I definitely am playing with more confidence. Past years, I played really hesitant — scared to take shots, scared to drive to the basket. But now I’m a captain, a senior, and I realize the younger players need to rely on someone to help them out and contribute. That falls on all three of us.”
Vincent, who initially gained starting experience as a sophomore, is primarily a softball player. But Ordonez, Cutka and Vincent have been basketball teammates since sixth grade.
“We lean on each other,” Vincent said. “Sometimes, with Abby, we’ll just look at each other, she’ll see me down low and it’s just a brain connection.
“We all work off of each other. If we see Abby is having a good game, it’s, ‘Oh, we have to feed Abby.’ If Lexi is popping off, it’s, ‘Oh, we have to feed Lexi.’ There’s just a better flow overall.”
Ordonez agreed they work well together.
“It makes it easier,” she said. “Since we’ve played with each other for a good amount of time, we can read each other more.
“I feel like everybody contributes in a good way. We all fill our spots. We have the skills to handle the ball, to shoot, to post up. There’s no drama or arguing. We’re having fun. It’s like we’re just a big, happy family.”