MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Cat Wassick had a lot of pressure on her last basketball season. All four juniors on the Morgantown High girls’ basketball squad did being thrown into a leadership role with no seniors on the team, all with high expectations of reaching the state tournament.
No one expected the season to end the way it did, but the story of the 2019-20 Mohigans was something magical in its own right, despite being knocked out of the state tournament in the first round.
After starting the season off on a bad foot, and with some internal communication issues, the girls’ team snapped out of it, hunkered down and went on a big regular season-ending run, winning seven straight with a big road win over Parkersburg South in the finale. A subsequent win over Preston put them into the sectional finals where rival University was able to shut down a strong, first-half offensive front in the second half, beating MHS, 45-30.
Disappointed they couldn’t secure what would be an easy state-bid – the Mohigans would have played John Marshall if they had beaten UHS in the sectional championship, a team they easily swept in the regular season – a tall task awaited the youth-laden team: No. 1 Wheeling Park. Park had lost only three games in the regular season, two to Indian Creek (Ohio) and one to Huntington, and virtually swept everyone else. They had already beat MHS twice in the regular season, as well as powers UHS and Parkersburg, so a road game in Wheeling was daunting.
But the Mohigans prevailed. They were able to stay ahead of Park in most cases, trading leads with the Patriots ever so often. With 13 seconds on the clock, Wassick powered her way into the paint to secure a bucket and one. Probably the biggest foul shot of her life went in, and the Mohigans held on for the one-point victory. That was a March 4, and now, nearly a year after that huge game, Wassick is ready to show the state what the Mohigans are packing.
“We had never made it to the state tournament, so the idea of us getting to go back next year, we knew what to expect,” Wassick recollected after MHS was knocked out of the state tournament. “But also to learn from the mistakes and setbacks we had last year.
“The first few practices were great,” Wassick said. “We have a group of girls that wants to work hard, and is going to push themselves to win. We’ll find a way to win and the girls will put the team before themselves.”
But what are her goals, and what has she done in the extended offseason to prepare for this big year?
“For myself, I want to be a leader for these girls. I want to not only make an impact for this year and win a state championship, but also set them up for years after to be successful because they’ve had good leadership from myself, Kaitlyn [Ammons], Berit [Johnson] and Reese [Moore], and just show up to everything and giving my 100% effort.
“I’ve worked on my offseason game to be more comfortable on the floor and more confident in leading people,” she said. “I’ve become more confident in my position as a leader, especially with my sister playing and coming on as a freshman. Also, I’ve worked on my shooting a lot. That’s improved. Mainly, the confidence that I have with the ball and myself.”
One unfortunate roadblock is that just days after the Mohigans were able to get back to practice, a player tested positive for COVID-19. Now, the team is quarantining, a setback that will cut into the first portion of the already shortened and compressed season. Wassick isn’t downtrodden, though, understanding this is just part of life now. She also notes that the team chemistry is what will help her and the rest of the girls prevail over this setback, just as it did before they went on that seven-win run last year.
“I’d say we’re all really close, even if there are issues outside the court we’ve learned to put those aside whenever we step on the floor,” she said. “That was something we struggled with last year, but this year we’ve improved on that. We’re getting along a lot better.”
Wassick mentioned her younger sister, Sofia, entering the team as a freshman point guard. This is the biggest point of excitement for Wassick, since, according to her, she started playing basketball in 7th-grade to have the chance, later on, to share the floor with her.
“Her being a freshman and me being a senior, having the opportunity to play together, that’s something I’m really excited about. I think that’s a big thing.”
Not to mention, there are growing pains for freshmen entering varsity, but with her there to lead Sofia she’s hoping to mitigate any of those pains based on her own experience.
“She’s just being thrown in. She doesn’t know the plays, but she’s expected to know them. A lot of the things that come with confidence with the ball and confidence in herself, and I feel like I’m trying to help her with that,” Wassick said. “We have really good chemistry on and off the court. She’s my best friend and I’m so excited I get to finally play with her.”
Wassick is also a talented tennis player, winning a state title as MHS’s No. 2 seed in 2018. Even though tennis wasn’t played last year, Wassick had decided to step away from the sport for her junior season. That’s not the case this year, however.
“I’ll be picking up my racket again to play,” she said. “I decided since – I’ve played tennis my whole life – even though I quit, that I’m a senior and this will be the last year I get to compete so why not pick it up and go compete again?”
She’s not worried about the tight, concurrent seasons, either.
“It’s always been basketball practice to tennis practice or something like that, so I’m not concerned with that,” she said. “I’m more concerned about the timeframe, tennis starts around sectionals, regionals, states, and obviously that’s the most important part of basketball season. The idea of them overlapping and me having to commit my time to one, basketball, I can’t commit my time to both. But I’m excited to play both.”
Due to the COVID-19 outbreak within the team, the Mohigans will now begin their season on March 15 against South Charleston at West Virginia State. They will then follow up that game at University the next day. Currently, there are only 13 regular season games scheduled before the postseason kicks off on April 13.
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