There’s no such thing as a good time for an injury, especially when it happens to a team’s top player.
But knowing that standout junior Makayla Parton would be out of the lineup for the foreseeable future, the Seckman girls basketball team decided to take a “glass half-full” approach into the final month of the regular season.
Parton was averaging 17.6 points per game before suffering a high ankle sprain on Jan. 28 against Northwest, so her absence creates a huge vacuum.
“Other players will be able to get more experience and play longer minutes, get into different situations that they may not have otherwise,” Parton said. “They’ll definitely get more confident, and if I’m able to get back by the end of the season and they continue to play like that, we’ll have a much better chance in districts.”
Only time will tell if that scenario plays out. Parton’s is the type of injury that comes with no timetable for recovery.
“The doctors don’t know how long it’s going to take,” she said. “I’m in a boot right now, and I’ve been working with the school trainer. We’re going to start doing physical therapy, but they said it’s really just based on how fast I heal.”
The injury occurred in the opening minute of Seckman’s home game against the Lions, as Parton was fouled driving to the basket.
“When I hit the girl who was in front of me, I landed awkwardly on my ankle,” she said. “I felt and heard popping, so I knew something bad happened. At first, it wasn’t that bad painwise, but I tried to get up and couldn’t put weight on it. It started swelling right away, so I knew it wasn’t good.”
It wasn’t good for Parton or the Jaguars, who had seen the 5-11 forward develop into a dominant all-around player this season.
At 17.6 points per game, Parton ranks among the leaders in scoring in the St. Louis area, and she also leads the Jaguars with an average of 8.5 rebounds. In the four games before the injury, Parton scored 21 points or more three times, with Seckman winning those games in relatively easy fashion.
“It’s been exciting watching Makayla turn into the player we knew she could be,” head coach Brian Metteer said.
Now Seckman hopes Parton can return to be that player in the postseason, which will begin later this month in the Class 5 District 1 Tournament in Jackson. But Metteer said the team will certainly err on the side of caution.
“Until she’s cleared medically and we’re confident that she can go out there and play, we’re going to take care of her first,” Metteer said.
“Makayla is very optimistic that she’s going to come back this season, but that’s kind of her mentality in general,” he said. “I had ankle surgery my senior year, and I know that until you get back on the court and you’re moving and cutting and jumping, it’s really hard to determine where you’re at. Right now, we’re hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. We’re smart enough to know that basketball is something Makayla wants to do and has a chance to do beyond high school, and we’re not going to put her out there if we think she has any vulnerability.”
In the meantime, Metteer is getting a chance to see how the rest of the players respond in Parton’s absence. So far he likes what he has seen.
“It’s hard when you lose a player who is such an essential part of the team on the offensive and defensive ends,” he said. “When you have somebody that scores 18 points a game, gets nine rebounds and you put her at the top of the press, you can’t have one person where you go to her and say, ‘Go out there and fill that role,’ but we do have several players who have said, ‘I’ve got to do more.’”
Fortunately, Parton’s injury came during a relatively light period in the team’s schedule. After falling to Northwest 46-43, the Jaguars beat Ritenour one night later 48-46, then were routed by Oakville 67-29 in a Feb. 1 home game that Metteer said was “a wakeup call.”
Seckman had just one game the following week, a 58-31 win over McCluer on Feb. 5, which Metteer said gave the team some much-needed practice time.
“It’s important for the girls to know that regardless of who is in the lineup, our goal is going to be the same,” Metteer said. “We had that conversation, and in practice we’ve reinforced the importance of it, because our eyes are always set on districts, and we knew that we were going to pretty much have to play a perfect game if we’re going to win at districts. To win against a team like Jackson or Poplar Bluff, we have to have everybody playing their role. So we saw this as a chance to say, ‘OK, what do we have to do to be successful?’”
Junior guard Abby Townsend, the Jaguars’ second-leading scorer at 8.9 points per game, has added more at the offensive end, including a team-high 15 points against McCluer.
“Abby’s doing a good job of putting the ball in the basket,” Metteer said. “Even with Makayla in there, Abby was giving us some big shots, but now that she’s the playmaker on the team, she’s doing well with that. Abby shoots well beyond the arc, which makes her hard to guard, because she’s quick, so she’s able to stretch out the defense a little bit.”
Metteer said junior guards Brianna Mercer, Savana Stephens, Tatum Wyman and Emma Harris also have made significant strides.
“Our guards as a whole, they have functioned very well for us,” Metteer said. “This can turn out to be OK for us, as long as we can continue to move forward, where, you know what, maybe we found out something about us that we didn’t know before.”
And with just one senior on this year’s roster, it’s hard not to cast an eye toward what this could mean for the program’s future.
“We definitely don’t want to sacrifice anything for this season, but long term, who knows what effect this might have,” Metteer said. “Next year, we should pretty much have the same cast, the same identity, and be that much better.”
After facing Summit on Feb. 12 and Marquette on Feb. 13 after the Leader deadline, Seckman plays at Parkway West on Friday and closes its regular-season schedule at Hillsboro on Monday, followed by a home game against Mehlville on Feb. 21.