By Rob Kiser
Miami Valley Today
PIQUA — In Tim McMahon’s first-year as Edison State Community College basketball coach, the short transition period with little time to recruit led to a 4-20 season.
At the time, McMahon said it wouldn’t happen again.
Five years later, the Lady Chargers are close to winning 100 games in a four-year stretch and enjoying their fourth straight 20-plus win season.
After going 20-11, 24-6 and 25-6 the last three years, the Chargers improved to 24-3 Wednesday night after a 105-44 win over Ohio Christian JVs.
Edison has games remaining with Cuyahoga Community College and Lakeland.
And if you think sustained success at this level is easy, consider half the team graduates every year at the Community College level.
“That’s true,” McMahon said. “It seems like you have to recruit 9 or 10 players ever year.”
And McMahon said the formula is an easy one.
“We have nine kids who are All-Academic OCCAC,” McMahon said. “We have great kids, who can play.”
The changeover of the roster is an adjustment for the players as well.
Sarah Pothast and Brogan McIver are mainstays from last year — along with Rebekah New, Elysabette Andrews and Emily Powell.
“It definitely is a challenge,” Pothast, who doubles as a volleyball standout at Edison as well, said. “But, we put a lot of work in the offseason and early in the season to get used to playing with each other.”
McIver, a former Lehman Catholic standout, agreed.
“We get used to playing with each other early in the season,” McIver said. “Right now, we are clicking on all cylinders just like you want to be at this point of the season.”
And as this team has shown, McMahon’s teams re-load — rebuilding isn’t part of the equation.
“Honestly, I thought with the people we lost (off last year’s team), it might be a rebuilding year,” McIver said. “But, he (looking at Tim McMahon) said we have a great recruiting class and I trusted him and he was right.”
Maddy Bakosh, Audra Schaub and Allison Siefring have all made an instance impact as well. All three have earned Player of the Week honors in the OCCAC at different times.
And the freshman class includes Mariah Baker, Kayla Bergman and Mallory Armentrout as well.
“The first three have really played well,” McMahon said. “Mariah (Baker) is a good player and Kayla Bergman is going to be a good player next year. And Mallory (Armentrout) does a nice job.”
Wednesday night was no exception.
McIver led the scorers with 21 points, while Siefring had 12 points, 18 rebounds and six assists.
Baker had 14 points and eight rebounds, while Bakosh had 13 rebounds, seven rebounds and six assists.
Schaub added 12 points, Bergman had eight rebounds, Pothast pulled down seven, New had six rebounds and Armentrout and Andrews both grabbed five.
“Did you see any drop off when we went to the bench?,” McMahon said. “There isn’t any. We have nine or 10 kids that can play.”
And that won’t change any in the near future.
“We have a great recruiting class coming in,” McMahon said. “We have two girls from Tri-Village, the (Haileigh) Behnken girl from Greenville and one from Lima. Those girls can play.”
But, for now, Edison is focused on its final two games.
The Lady Chargers play Cuyahoga Community College Saturday.
A win there would them a chance to earn a share of the OCCAC title when Lakeland visits a week from Saturday. It is believed it would be Edison’s first such title if they do.
“That’s the great thing about it,” McIver said. “We have two games left and if we win them both, we share the title. We want to make our mark at Edison.”
McMahon agreed.
“We have two goals every year,” McMahaon said. “To win the conference and go to nationals. Everything is still in front of us. If we get past Cuyahoga, we have the chance to share the title.”
Which seemed like a distant dream five years ago.
“Did we get here quicker than I thought?,” McMahon asked. “I don’t know. It is really hard to say. I had been an assistant coach here for six or seven years, so I think that was an advantage. I knew what it would take.”
As the 93 wins over the last four years prove — with even better things in the future.
Contact Rob Kiser at [email protected].
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