By Larry Jacobson, JTV Sports
When East Jackson Girls Basketball Coach Meeka Sova was asked to highlight a couple of big moments this year for junior guard Kassidy Blough – JTV Sports Girls Player of the Year – she didn’t know where to start.
- Was it the night Kassidy hit a pair of free throws with three seconds left on the clock to beat Napoleon?
- Was it the second game against Napoleon when she scored 29 points?
- How about the night when she scored 35 in a game?
- Or is it the fact Kassidy is the first Trojan girl’s player to score 1,000 points (she has 1,105 in her career) and she’s only a junior.
It’s all of the above, and yet it’s also none of it.
“What makes Kassidy so special is her understanding of the team,” Sova said. “She’s our quiet leader and she leads by example, but she knows so much of what she has accomplished is because of the players around her.”
Sova pointed to a game earlier in the year in which the media focus was entirely on Blough and her accomplishments that particular night. The junior guard, however, wanted nothing to do with that.
“Kassidy wanted to make sure her teammates got the attention they deserved for helping her,” Sova said. “I think that’s what makes her so special.”
And special she is – just as the entire Trojans team was this year. East Jackson (18-5) won the Cascades Conference and Class C District Championships with Blough averaging nearly 21 points, 5 assists and 4 steals a game.
A special player on a special team.