HUMBOLDT — At some schools, a person really has to hunt around to find certain records. Sometimes they are on a plaque hidden in some dark hallway’s trophy case, sometimes they aren’t even displayed at all.
Humboldt doesn’t have that problem.
From the time future Cubs are able to walk into the high school gymnasium, they are able to see the top-10 all-time scorers for the Cubs boys’ and girls’ teams displayed prominently on the east wall of the court. Those records might as well have been a target for Makaylah McCall, because the minute she put on a high school uniform, those 10 women’s names have given her the motivation to be the best she can on the court.
On Tuesday, in a 58-42 win over Fredonia, McCall achieved her goal and secured a spot on the wall.
McCall’s 18-point effort in the victory gave her 634 points in her career and puts her in tenth-place on the all-time list with 1990 Humboldt graduate Jana Woods being bumped down to 11th all-time with 626 points.
“It is awesome,” McCall said. “I’ve wanted it since I was a freshman, but now that it actually has happened, I’m hoping to just keep trying to go up and up the list.”
McCall’s next target is nine points ahead of her with Kendy Kaufman sitting at 643. Kafman starred for the Cubs from 1992-96.
McCall was far from a one-person show on Tuesday, however.
After McCall got the Cubs going with the first four points for Humboldt, her shot stopped falling for her and she looked to become more of a distributor.
“We all have bad days and we never get down on each other because we each understand that happens,” McCall said. “If I am missing, they keep giving me the ball and we will figure it out.”
The teammate that became the main beneficiary of McCall’s assists was junior Rylan Wilhite, who had seven points in the first quarter alone — she finished the game with 12 total.
“If one of us is down, someone else steps up,” Wilhite said. “We don’t really have one person that takes off each time, it switches each time which is good.”
With Wilhite clicking the Cubs were able to grab an early 13-7 lead and McCall capped the first-quarter scoring with a basket to drive the margin to 15-10 after eight minutes.
The second quarter wasn’t as smooth for the Cubs.
They struggled to find the bottom of the net early and senior point guard Tilar Wells picked up her second foul and had to go to the bench, leaving the ball-handling responsibilities to be divided among Wilhite, McCall and sophmore Aricah McCall for the most part.
“It is nice to have such a well-rounded team,” Makaylah McCall said. “When someone goes out, you don’t go, ‘Oh, now what!’… We all practice each other’s positions in case that situation happens.”
The Yellow Jackets cut the lead down to 19-18, but a late bucket for Wilhite and a three pointer by Wells — who subbed by in late in the quarter — made sure that Humboldt didn’t relinquish the lead and gave them a 24-18 lead at the intermission.
A 5-0 run to begin the second half got Fredonia back within one-point, but Humboldt quickly answered with a basket from senior Annalise Whitcomb and a triple from Maggie Johnson to extend the lead back to 29-23.
After a Fredonia foul shot and with Makaylah still struggling with her shot, Aricah McCall stepped to the forefront with a three-point shot to give Humboldt its largest lead to that point at eight.
“Arikah and Rylan really stepped up tonight,” Makaylah McCall said. “They helped us get past that score where it was close and (Fredonia) could still come back.”
The lead was 36-29 when Makaylah McCall got her first basket of the second half to go down. She made it count on a baseline drive that resulted in a three-point play and just like that the lead was ten.
“Makaylah made the first couple and then quieted down,” Humboldt coach Aubrey Jones said. “We were laughing at her, because we said, ‘Hey, you are on the leading scorers’ board now, how about you go knock a few more down?’ And all of a sudden she started knocking shots down again.”
Fredonia didn’t back down though and rallied to cut the lead to 42-39 midway through the fourth quarter. Again it was Aricah McCall who had the answer though.
“Arikah is huge for us off the bench,” Jones said. “Even though she is only a sophomore, she has far more experience than any other sophomore, because we didn’t have many subs last year so she had to play. I don’t feel like we lose anything when we go to her.”
An Arikah free throw followed by a Makaylah basket gave Humboldt some breathing room, then Arikah knocked down a corner three and followed that up with a layup to extend the margin to 10 points again with 2:45 left.
After a Fredonia basket, Humboldt closed the game on a 8-0 run to seal the game.
“We beat a good team and it was because we finally nailed down and did what we need to do late in the game,” Jones said.
The Cubs finished with three in double figures as Makaylah McCall had 18, Wilhite had 12 and Arikah McCall had 11.
“That really helps our confidence going against better teams,” Makaylah McCall said. “We haven’t been playing very much competition lately so we were worried coming out, but we got used to it and it is a very good win.”
JUNIOR VARSITY AND FRESHMEN
Summaries of the Cub junior varsity and freshmen girls’ games will be available in Wednesday’s edition of the Iola Register.
Game information was not available to the Register in time for Tuesday’s edition.
UP NEXT
The Cubs will host Cherryvale on Friday night in their final game before next week’s Peasanton Tournament.
Cherryvale currently has a 3-5 record.
