For Pocola girls basketball, having six senior starters is greater than five

Pocola girls basketball coach Mark McKenzie has a nice problem to have. He utilizes six senior starters on a Lady Indians’ squad that won their first 15 ballgames, including winning back-to-back LeFlore County Tournament championships.

Of course, the quandary McKenzie faces is that there can be only five players on the court at once.

So McKenzie alleviates that issue by rotating starters for each game while ensuring that the one player who doesn’t get to start still gets plenty of on-court time. Those six senior starters are guards Lety Parga, Kylee Merritt, Jordan Jackson and Riley Jerrell, along with forwards Allyssa Parker and Piper Warren.

“It’s a fun experience and it’s just being able to do this with these girls is amazing and the chemistry that we have makes it a lot easier to play with each other and everything else,” Parker said. “I have faith that any one of these girls can score at any given time, so I think that’s one thing that has made this year fun and also has given us success.”

McKenzie figuring out which five to start took shape last offseason, when Jackson transferred in from Warner when her father, Jeremy Jackson, became Pocola’s superintendent. The players have fully embraced the concept that six is still better than five.

“I think it’s not only unique but it’s also an advantage,” Parga said. “Before Jordan was here, it was us five juniors playing all game; every single game, we had to play all four quarters and we had to be in really good shape. But I feel like now that we have a sixth player, we have a deeper bench now and it is a really big advantage. I think us knowing the game as we do and having that chemistry is really big and it plays a lot into what we’ve been able to do this season.”

Plus, the Lady Indians who were already there before Jackson’s arrival have already experienced success. As freshmen in 2022, they were part of Pocola’s 2A state championship team. Parga, Parker, Jerrell and Merritt also play on Pocola’s softball team. They were state slow pitch champions in 2022, and played in the state fast pitch championship game the past two autumns. Last basketball season, Pocola made the 2A state tournament before falling in the quarterfinals to Merritt, the eventual state champs.

“We’ve been in those situations countless times in softball and we went last year; we weren’t even supposed to be there, and I feel like the roles we’ve been given, we can step into them fully and just compete to the best of our ability,” Parga said.

The four softball seniors on the basketball squad will continue to play softball in college. Parker signed with defending four-time national champion Oklahoma, Kylee Merritt with Pittsburg (Kan.) State and both Parga and Jerrell with Eastern Oklahoma State College.

Perhaps Pocola’s biggest test so far took place in the LeFlore County Tournament title game Jan. 25 against Howe, another area power. The score was tied at 52-all in the closing seconds, and the Lady Indians had the ball, looking to find someone for the game-winning shot. It happened to be Jackson, who launched a deep shot from the top of the key. The ball swished through the net as time expired, lifting Pocola to a 55-52 win.

“I was just happy that we got a shot off,” Jackson said. “There was four seconds left and I was scared we weren’t going to get a shot off. Obviously, everybody in the gym thought that Allyssa (the team’s leading scorer) was going to take the last shot, and so the fact that we didn’t get it to her, I think everybody was kind of shocked about that.”

The Lady Indians are also counting on the steady guidance from McKenzie, the program’s longtime coach who led Pocola to state titles in 2008 and again in 2022.

“With his knowledge and expertise, and knowing he’s been there before and knowing the tradition of this program, I know I’m going to do whatever it takes (to win state),” Warren said.

That also means continuing to do the things not pertaining to the games itself. One such aspect is the team’s conditioning, which includes constant running during practice.

“We have to stay in shape,” Merritt said.

That’s part of trying to outwork the opposition.

“We have to work and we have to want it more,” Parga said. “Like, I would cut off my finger to have another state title; I know I want it really, really bad. We have to go out and we have to outwork every week, we just have to want it more and I feel like right now, we do. We just want it more.”