They have been playing together on the Hilton varsity girls basketball team for four years now, so you would assume both are upper-class players getting ready to graduate. But one is a junior and one is a sophomore. And one was a team captain as a freshman.
Junior Ella Clark and sophomore Mallory Heise combined are scoring 58% of the points and 60% of the assists through the holiday break to lead the Cadets to a 5-3 start. This comes after an 8-13 finish in 2019-20, 2-8 in the pandemic shortened 2020-21 and 11-10 last season.
“We’re really just trying to build on the experience that we had and help the younger players build that confidence, the confidence we’re going to have going forward,” Heise said “We’ve played together a lot and we’re trying to work them into it so we can be successful for the rest of the year.”
“We’ve always played together since we were little, we come to open gyms together and even in the offseason, we’re not playing AAU together, but we go to different gyms together,” Heise said.
“It’s really that trust that we have playing together for so long; we played soccer together and basketball, so we really just have a good connection and it shows on the court,” Clark added.
“We’re trying to get all five starters to come together and play hard together and we build off each other and play off each other.”
One of the two scored on nine consecutive conversions in what became a 59-27 blowout of East High to start the second half of the season and improve their overall record to 6-3.
But they are far from the only contributors on the Cadets squad. Junior Leah Thompson leads the team in rebounds and blocks while senior Karlee Hargather and sophomore Elena Graziano stand three-four in steals.
“The people coming in are playing their heart out and proving why…and when everybody scores it bring us closer together as a team,” Heise said.
Heise wears number 14 because “my birthday is February 14 and it’s an even number; I love even numbers.” Clark wears number 32 because “it was actually my mom’s number.” Mom Kelly Clark played for three varsity seasons for the Cadets in the 90s. Ella Clark is in her fifth season on varsity, so has her mom beat. “Always gotta beat the parents.”
Their experience has been huge for us the past two years, but now their leadership roles are increasing more and more getting girls to play both ends of the floor and not just getting buckets and making sure we’re raising our intensity in practice as well,” Hilton head coach Dave Heise said.
“They are underclassmen, but they are veteran players and the whole county knows that and a lot of our younger players – we still have a decent amount of sophomores – for example Ella Simonelli tonight got 11 points, which was a breakout party for her, so if we can bring along some of the quote, unquote role players, we can start to really handle some of the top teams in Section V.”
All three of the Cadets losses this season and their first-round playoff loss last season came against teams from the east side of the county – teams they will need to beat to advance in the Section V playoffs.
“Our main focus is to beat one of those big teams and we really want to prove why we should be one of them right now and for years to come,” Heise said.
“Our goal is to always get a home sectional (playoff) game and we’re working toward that; we’re trying to be the team to beat,” Clark finished.
