McMahon season ends, but Senators proud of accomplishments

Coming into this season, the Brien McMahon girls basketball team had a particular set of goals it wanted to reach. So when the Senators were knocked out of the Class LL tournament in the second round with a 65-37 loss last Friday at Norwich Free Academy, there was a sense of pride, rather than disappointment, in the locker room.

"At the end of that game everyone--players, coaches--we sat there for 25 minutes or so and we spoke about how pleased we were with how the season played out," coach Mark McElveen said. "We played 23 games and we were legitimately in 21 of them; we competed all the way down the line."

Unfortunately for the Senators, one of those two games they weren't able to stay close in was last Friday's matchup with NFA.

"I think Norwich was just the better team. They were the defending state champions, they brought back all five starters and have two top division one prospects, they were just better than us," McElveen said. "I thought we played with them for the most part, and even if we brought our A-game we still might have lost. It came down to a failure to hit our shots in the first quarter, if you look at the stats from the other three quarters we played them pretty even."

It was an almost fitting end to the Senators' season, as making shots early in the game was a problem that plagued McMahon all year long. Playing against a team like Norwich made it too difficult to overcome.

"It happened to us too many times this year, but we were lucky enough to be in positions where we weren't playing teams as talented and experienced at Norwich," McElveen said.

Despite the defeat, McElveen said he and his team had plenty to be proud of. Coming into the season, the Senators wanted to qualify for the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference playoffs.

Mission accomplished.

They also wanted to qualify for the Class LL tournament.

Mission Accomplished yet again.

Winning a playoff game, on their home court nonetheless?

Icing on the cake.

"Overall it was a very successful season, we really performed well and gave everything we had," McElveen said. "It was special."

It was special for McElveen in more ways than one. After taking over for McMahon coaching legend Ed Faulkner halfway through last season, this was his first full year at the helm of the Senators.

Luckily, he said, he had a great group of seniors to help him out.

Khea Gibbs, Kaitlin Whittington, Angie Cruz, Kaylin English and Emily Sawyer all made McElveen's first year at the helm that much easier.

"This senior class will definitely be missed. This will always be a special group to me, the first group I coached," McElveen said. "I couldn't have asked for more from them and we had a great year."

McElveen said that English and Whittington will be playing field hockey and track respectively in college next year, while Sawyer told him that the game against Norwich was her final basketball game.

He said Gibbs and Cruz are both still looking to play college basketball next year.

"This was a special group, especially because they all contributed and they all made my job that much easier. They were all I could ask for, they all competed hard every night," McElveen said. "I'm grateful to have had these seniors and for the way they set the tone for this program."

McElveen added that he is at ease replacing this year's senior class with a senior class that will include five players next year.

"I'm very comfortable with what we're bringing back. We have some juniors that had a good amount of playing time like Kiara Goodwin and we should have Billie Joe Tomlin back next year as well," he said. "I think we can be similar to this year's team if we work hard."

He also said they will have the benefit of having more time to adapt to his style of play.

"Those girls will all have a second year with the system I've put in," McElveen said. "The girls that were only here for the one year, they bought into it, but these girls will have an extra year of it.'

McElveen added that one reason the team could perform even better next year will be his own maturation as a head coach.

"This year was definitely a learning experience, it's not as easy as it may seem when you're sitting in the second chair or in the stands, knowing when to call a time-out, when to sub in players," McElveen said. "I was very pleased with the way the season went, but I look at a couple of games from earlier in the year, I wonder if I had the knowledge that I had at the end of the season if we would have seen some different results."

When looking back on McMahon's impressive season, McElveen said he will probably look back to two games--one not-so-good, and one very good.

"I'll think of that loss to St. Joe's in the FCIACs, that maybe if we made some adjustments we could have been in the games. We forced about 20 turnovers in the first half, but we couldn't make our shots. The girls deserved better," McElveen said. "I'd also probably think of the (win) against Danbury, we played well in that game from beginning to end. It was also the pink jersey night (which supported breast cancer awareness)."