Senior Test Kelly Mccaffery Confident Saxon Girls Hoops Squad Can Finish Strong

Ferris High’s Kelly McCaffery is being tested in her senior basketball season.

Her patience is being tested.

Her attitude is being tested.

Her belief in her teammates is being tested.

McCaffery had hoped her final hoops season would be a success. Everybody does.

Coming into the season, she believed Ferris could win the Greater Spokane League and advance to the State 4A tournament. That’s with just two seniors on the roster.

Those were lofty goals and not all will be reached. An 0-5 start, including 0-3 in league play, probably means the GSL title is out of reach but if the last two games are any indication, the big prize may be attainable.

Ferris has beaten Central Valley and Gonzaga Prep back to back. Both were ranked in the state’s top five and tied for the league lead until running into the resurgent Saxons. In Tuesday night’s win over the Bears, McCaffery scored a career-high 16 points.

The earlier losses were hard for McCaffery to take, considering she was accustomed to GSL success and trips to state. The Saxons finished third in state in 1996, when she was a freshman on varsity, and the team placed eighth last season.

Yet McCaffery remains convinced Ferris can pick it up in the second half of the season and finish strong.

She says that as a captain she owes it to the team to remain upbeat. Otherwise a negative attitude would rub off on the underclassmen.

“I wish I knew how to pull everybody out of it,” she said.

“It’s hard. But I’m going to do it, though.

“I think (struggling) is making us stronger players. Especially if we pull it off and get to regionals, we will be that much stronger.”

The losses have been frustrating, but McCaffery says she’s having a good time.

“It’s been so fun this year that I’ve been able to look past that and not be frustrated,” she said.

McCaffery, who already had reached her current height of 5-foot-10 as a sixth-grader, says her heart pounds before every game because she knows each one will be a challenge no matter the opponent.

“I know we are capable of winning,” she said. “We have all the talent.

“The thing right now is we’re having trouble believing in ourselves. It’s only mental, because the physical ability is there.

“If we could get our heads into it and our hearts into it, we could win every game,” she said.

She tries to get her teammates pumped up for games.

“Kelly’s been really positive,” said senior teammate Sabrina Brazzle. “She’s always getting everyone going.

“She shows a lot of emotion and passion for the game, and she expresses that to the team.”

McCaffery began playing basketball in fifth grade at Mullan Road Elementary. Her dad wanted her to play, so she agreed to give it a try.

She likes to try things.

She’s running for Lilac princess, though “it’s not in my character, and I can’t see myself standing on a float waving.” She began lifting weights in middle school.

But McCaffery didn’t want to play basketball at first.

“I didn’t like the sport, but I got into it and it came pretty naturally,” she said.

She also had Lewis and Clark girls coach Jim Redmon as her AAU coach from fifth to seventh grade. McCaffery said he was an inspiration and made her want to stick with the sport.

And she may stay with it a little longer. McCaffery, who has a 3.79 grade-point average, plans to attend Spokane Falls Community College to study nursing and says she’s considering playing basketball.

She figures it might be harder to give up than she thinks.

“When you feel like you’re good at something, you tend to like it,” she said.