Now that the basketball season has concluded Byng High School junior Alona Cooper looks back with pride at how the season turned out (16-11) given how it started.
“I didn’t think we would have a great season because we were replacing three starters and me and Cadence (Carlos) were most experienced players out there, so it was rough starting out. But we finally figured out how to play together towards the end of the season even though we only made it to regionals.”
Since there were three seniors on the team Alona figured she didn’t need to worry about team leadership. But being one of the more experienced players, Alona got a taste of it anyway.
“At the start of the year coach (Luke) Clark told me not to worry about trying to be a team leader and just do my own thing but I felt that Cadence and I ended up taking on some leadership responsibility.
We helped the younger kids that really didn’t know yet what they were doing or didn’t understand something. Sometimes in practice when things would get chaotic and people were joking around, I would step in and tell them they needed to stop messing around and get serious about practice.”
Alona, who also plays second base and the outfield in softball, says she got her start in basketball playing at the Boys and Girls Club at around eight and has played some AAU ball during the summers. Her start in softball came when her grandmother heard about a guy looking for girls to play and signed her up when she was 10.
Alona has a couple of female role models that have inspired her over the past few years.
“Kennedy Large (now playing at OBU), who I got to play with when I was a freshman, is a role model. She’s an awesome player and the kind of player I want to be. My mom is also an inspiration. She’s had to overcome some personal challenges as I was growing up and I’ve really seen her grow in the last four years and that has inspired me to do the things she didn’t get to do.”
Looking ahead to next year, Alona says her main goal as a leader will be to get her players together and map out a strategy on how to get past the regionals in her senior year.
