Clear-eyed focus on 2017 for Sheehan and O’Hara
HERSHEY >> Mary Sheehan gazed down the court with a look of steely determination Friday night.
There were no tears, no sobbing, as you’d expect from a Cardinal O’Hara group that had marched to the PIAA Class AAAA final with a roster devoid of seniors, then ran up against the three-time champion buzzsaw that is Cumberland Valley.
But the intensity radiating from Sheehan’s visage was neither devastated nor angry. It was merely confident, as she and fellow junior Hannah Nihill shifted under the weight of the PIAA runner-up trophy they’d just been presented.
“I said to Hannah, ‘That’s going to be us. I want that to be us,’” Sheehan said after O’Hara’s 57-34 setback at the hands of a dominant Cumberland Valley squad. “And she agreed that’s what we want.”
If Sheehan needed a mirror to reflect her feelings, it stood 60 feet down the court, having a third gold medal in as many years draped around her neck. For the three seniors on Cumberland Valley’s squad — including two-time state player of the year and Friday’s MVP Kelly Jekot — the championship journeys began with loss.
Jekot, who scored 28 points to go with seven rebounds and four assists in a phenomenal performance, reminisced to a formative juncture in the Eagles’ coalescence into a state champion: Losing to Spring-Ford on the Giant Center court three years before.
“For me, losing that game was one of the worst feelings ever,” Jekot said, “and I never wanted to feel that again.”
The Lions (26-4), many of whom come through the same Comets AAU pipeline that produced Jekot and her younger sister, Katelyn, are in the same boat, however painful it may have been Friday night. Linus McGinty started three juniors and two sophomores in the final. His roster features no one with a “12” in the year column.
The benefit of youth strips some of the pressure from O’Hara on an occasion like Friday. Just getting to the final was part of the goal, a stepping stone to what they hope is a sustained stay in Hershey that could yield a championship, maybe more, as the group grows together.
“Obviously our goal from the beginning of the season was to get to this game, and next year it’s going to be the same thing, but next year we have a target on our backs,” said sophomore Kenzie Gardler, who led O’Hara with 11 points Friday and will eventually join Kelly Jekot at Villanova. “Teams are going to be out to get us, and they’re going to want to beat us because we got to this position and they want to be in this position. We just have to keep it up and get back to the Giant Center.”
Gardler is one of three Lions who’ve already pledged their college futures, with Sheehan bound for Saint Joseph’s and Nihill promising her college days to Drexel.
Friday illustrated the weaknesses still present in the O’Hara roster. The Lions don’t have a player over six feet tall, a glaring lack of height exploited by Jekot and forward Addie Kirkpatrick (12 points, 10 rebounds) and vehemently announced by a 38-15 rebounding disadvantage. O’Hara’s aforementioned big three is as good as most teams’, but cultivating balance to matchup the elite teams that they aspire to regularly compete with is a must. Games like Friday, where the rest of the roster accounted for just one basket, will not do.
Still, as Sheehan observed, the final ledger reads favorably for O’Hara. It ends the season at 26-4. The losses: Delaware power Ursuline Academy, Neumann-Goretti (crowned the PIAA AA champ Friday), Archbishop Wood (the favorite to win Saturday’s AAA crown) and Cumberland Valley. All with a squad that is still relatively green and growing into its full potential.
With the shifting classes next year landing O’Hara in 5-A, they have Jekot’s endorsement as the early title favorite.
And the experience gleaned from this trip will be a boon in making that prophecy a reality.
“I think we’re capable of it,” Sheehan said. “Now we’ve been here, and I think we’ll have the confidence to have a really good opportunity next year.”
