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12 • Monday, March 5, 2012 Second Season — The Daily GlobeMaki looks to join elite list of Midgette thousand-point scorersfy JASON JUNOsports@yourdailyglobe.comHURLEY — Caitlin Maki is 26 points from joining an elite club of Hurley Midgette basketball players. Whether she joins six other 1,000-point scorers or not, shell be remembered for a long time in Hurley.She has been to state four times, twice in softball and twice in cross country, and has been a big part of both teams. Maki is theleading scorer on the basketball team this season and is part of a group of seniors that hasn’t lost an Indianhead Conference game (66-0) or a regional tournament game (three titles).The Midgetttes, and Maki, expect good things in this year’s postseason.“Out of my four years of basketball, I feel like this is the best team we’ve had,” Maki said. “We have a good offense we’ve been practicing. We’re learning our patience better.”Maki has played varsity basketball, her favorite sport, since she was a freshman, scoring more than 100 points on a team with solid veterans like Kayla Windt, Brittany Czemeski and Jesse Mackey.“It’s not an easy thing to come in as a freshman and play and she got to play quite a bit,” Hurley coach Melissa Oja said. “I was excited to have her on the team as a freshman. I thought the girls on the team did a good job of mentoring her.”That includes 2010 graduate Mackey, who has seen Maki and this whole group from the beginning. Maki is a much better player than she was in her freshman days when Mackey was a junior.Maki leads Hurley with 16.4 pointsper game as a senior. Besides being a great scorer, the 5-8 forward also averages 6.5 rebounds, 4.2 steals and 3.0 assists per game.“I just think she's improved in everyway,” Mackey said. “She was always ascorer. Now she's a great defender and great rebounder. She's an all-around good player. She's definitely grown up.”It’s hard to hit 1,000 points in Hurley. The starters don’t play full games because Hurley usually wins by lopsided amounts. Becca Meade is next in line with 800-plus points.So what makes Maki such a great scorer?Oja was attracted to Maki’s quick-release shot that hasn’t slowed anysince she noticed it in eighth grade.“She’s so quick with the release,” Oja said. “She’s quick with the whole dynamics of catching it and releasing it. It’s all so fast. She always was very good at it. She’s gone through some ups and downs over the last four years with traveling because everything is so fast. She’s worked on that. We’ve worked on catching, shooting, different drills in practice. Now I think she’s really fine-tuned her game quite a bit.“Actually, she gets quite a bit of her points inside off of rebounds or loose balls. She’s got a nice little fake post move that shell do. She gets quite a few buckets off of that. She’s turned into an all-around player, not just an outside shooter for us.”Just six other players have hit the plateau in Hurley girls history. Kayla Windt was the most recent in 2009 and did so with an emphasis on penetration. Maki has been more of a consistent outside threat. The others are Darla Innes, Tammy Innes, Nichole Mazurek, Ashley Windt and Jaclyn Aijala.“When you put Caitlin in a category with Kayla and Darla Innes, in comparison to those players, Caitlin is one of those stellar athletes,” Oja said. “Kayla Windt has a reputation for being a stellar athlete here at the school. Jaclyn Aijala, same type of girl. Phenomenal athletes, not just in the game of basketball, but in every sport they do. (Maki’s) the same type.”Maki's athletic ability sticks out tomany observers, no matter the sport.“She’s very athletic. She’s very quick. She’s got good speed. She’s strong,” Hurley softball coach Jim Kivisto said. “On the softball aspect, she’s got a great arm, great speed, overall very good quickness. All that together with a good head on your shoulders, you’re going to be a good athlete.”Kivisto is happy to have her for another season on the softball diamond. She and other members of this senior class started young on the softball team also, going to state as sophomores and juniors, and Kivisto can’t believe they are seniors already.“She’s one of the better athletes that I have coached in my years,” said Kivisto, who started coaching softball in the late 19808. “I think No. 1, she’s also very good in school. She made the National Honor Society. That really helps. You have kids that are good in school, they’re very coachable too.”Maki is the team’s shortstop and those smarts come in handy.“She probably has one of the best arms I’ve ever seen,” Kivisto said. “You got to be smart to play that position. There’s so many places you got to be.”Maki was the leadoff hitter last year and was hitting over .500 before tailing off late in the year. With the middle of the order graduating, she will likely move to the middle of the order, Kivisto said.The Midgettes have won a regional basketball tournament title in each year Maki has been on the team. They haven’t won a sectional game yet, though. Hurley rarely sees an effective pressure defense during the season and they have to adjust to that quickly in the playoffs. Nerves are often a factor.This year’s team seems to recognize that.“We’ve been working on our press breaker and I think that’s one of our strongest things now,” Maki said. “We get nervous. But I think we get a lot more confident than we ever have been. I don’t know. I just feel like our team is a lot stronger this year. I think we’re going to go far.“We want to at least win a sectional game. Get there and see where we can go from there.”Maki stepped up in the fourth quarter of last year’s sectional semifinal against Boyceville. The Midgettes weren’t able to pull it out, though.“It’s hard looking back,” Maki said. “Now I know what it’s like and our team’s been through it. Our team is mostly made up of seniors. They all know what it’s like.”Oja said the entire team wants to make a postseason run this year. It’B a group that Oja knew coming into high school was a talented squad. They played good basketball, played on traveling teams and came from good families 'who worked hard with them on basketball, Oja said.The other seniors are Bry Stengard, Gabby Mattson, Brittany Raisanen, Miranda Manzanares and Becca Meade.Mackey played with this group of seniors for two years. When Mackey, now a Lady Samsons’ player, had a T-shirt to give to someone in the crowd at Gogebic Community College's season-ending celebration, she gave it to Maki.“I played with her for a couple years, I'm really close with her,” Mackey said of Maki. “She's a great player. The whole team is. I just want them to win.“I feel like I want it just as bad for them as they do.”Now is the time.“They have that good senior group,” Mackey said. “This is the time if they want to make that run. These girls have been playing together since elementary school and they know each other really well. They really want to win this.”Oja is greatful for what Mackey has done for her team.“Jesse Mackey has been a mentor to my seniors and with her at GCC, it has really helped my players,” Oja said. “They love her and respect her. Also, if she would have been in Hurley as a freshman, she would have had a chance at a 1,000 (points).”Maki is happy to have made it to state four times in other sports. The softball team has a good chance to go back to state this year. The only thing missing in her sparkling resume is a trip to state in basketball, or at least a sectional victory.Four trips to state is still an impressive feat. She was featured in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's “State salutes” Sunday.“I feel really lucky to have done it because I know not many people have gotten to,” Maki said. “So one more sport and I hope we can do it. I’m confident we can. We have strong goals this , year and our post is good.”“I think it would be the pinnacle of her career, if she could get there in basketball,” Oja said. “I really think this group of girls has a shot to do something.”Despite reaching such heights in other sports, basketball is Maki’s favorite sport, and it doesn’t seem close. In fact, she said she isn’t sure she would have run cross country if it didn’t prepare her so well for basketball.“I like the long season, the practices,” Maki said. “Cross country takes a lot more work, I get in really good shape. But I just love basketball, my team, my coach.“I think Bry (Stengard) has improved a lot. She’s one of our biggest assets on our team. The guards have picked it up. Sam Ofstad for sure. She’s definitely, being a junior, she’s stepped up a lot for us. Becca (Meade), she’s playing in the all-start game. I think we’ve all come through. I think we’re going to do good this year. I know we will.“Our coach is one of the best coaches around, I think. She’s a huge asset to our team. She communicates with us really good, she knows what our weaknesses are, she improves them. In previous years, our offense has been rushed, so we’ve worked on it so much this year, it should show in the playoffs.”Oja said Maki hopes to play basketball at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse next year. Other schools have also looked at her.“No matter where she goes, she’s going to be successful,” Oja said. “To be able to shoot like that, she’ll really be molded into a great college player.”
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Ironwood Daily Globe
Ironwood, Michigan, US
Mon, Mar 05, 2012
Page 28
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William C.
USA 27 Mar 2023
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