<\/p>\n
In her first two years on the Adams State University women\u2019s basketball team, 2013 Dolores graduate Cydney McHenry was barely getting any playing time, and it was frustrating.<\/p>\n
She could have quit.<\/p>\n
She could have transferred.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose thoughts definitely crossed my mind,\u201d McHenry said. \u201cI\u2019m sure it crosses a lot of freshman athletes\u2019 minds, because it\u2019s hard and it\u2019s nothing like high school. You\u2019re kind of in your comfort zone in high school and then you get to college and you have to learn something completely new.\u201d<\/p>\n
McHenry averaged 18.1 points per game and was an all-state selection in her senior year at Dolores, but after walking on to the Grizzlies squad her freshman year, she played fewer than 6 minutes per game under head coach Rebecca Alvidrez.<\/p>\n
Alvidrez left ASU after just one season, and Larry Joe Hunt was named interim head coach, and although McHenry received an athletic scholarship entering her sophomore season, she still played less than 8 minutes per game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was another learning process,\u201d she said. \u201cLearning what a new coach wants and what he runs, and his offenses and his defenses. So again, rode the pine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI talked to my parents about it, and my parents just kept telling me, \u2018You gotta stick through it,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cBoth of my parents played college sports, so they understood what it was going to take and they understood the pain that I was going through.\u201d<\/p>\n
McHenry\u2019s parents, John and Joye, competed for Adams State University from 1988-1992. John was on the track team, and Joye played volleyball for the Grizzlies over the same time period.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018Just do anything you can to get on the floor. Take on any role,\u2019\u201d Cydney\u2019s father advised. \u201cThat first year, they were short on posts, so she started playing post. She learned a bunch of post moves, and of course that helps her now.\u201d<\/p>\n
McHenry coached Cydney for three years in high school at Dolores, and is now the head coach for the Montezuma-Cortez Lady Panthers, who are currently 5-1. While he still gives Cydney occasional advice, he\u2019s settling into more of a role of proud parent than coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe still talks to me about, \u2018Are you getting your ball-handling in? Are you going in and shooting?\u2019\u201d Cydney said. \u201cBut, he\u2019s definitely there as a parent as well. I think we\u2019ve both created a very good relationship through it that is supportive and helpful to both of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were times when it had to be tough love between us for her mother and I,\u201d McHenry said. \u201cWe said, \u2018You\u2019ve got to stay with it, you\u2019ve got to stay focused. You might not ever see the floor your freshman year, but the rewards will come your junior and senior year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cydney laughs, saying, \u201cYou never want to say that your parents are always right.\u201d<\/p>\n
But in this case \u2013 they were.<\/p>\n
Now in her junior year, Cydney is enjoying a breakout season and has taken on a leadership role.<\/p>\n
After struggling to get on the court in her first two seasons, she has started every game this year and leads the Grizzlies in playing time, averaging 30.5 minutes per game.<\/p>\n
She also leads the team in assists per game (2.7), is tied for most rebounds per game (4.7), is second in steals with 19 and second on the team in scoring, averaging 10.6 points per game.<\/p>\n
The Grizzlies are just 2-8 overall, but McHenry is optimistic.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight before the break we played Western State, and that\u2019s our rival school, and we beat them,\u201d she said. \u201cThat was really exciting because it gave us our first conference win and pumped us up. And then the next day we traveled to CSU-Pueblo, and they\u2019re ranked number 17 in the nation right now, and we were winning at half.\u201d<\/p>\n
ASU eventually fell to CSU-Pueblo, 71-56, but McHenry said that the team continues to improve, and that she hopes they can get things rolling in the second half of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to see us win at least one game every weekend,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause we\u2019re playing two games a weekend, and it would be really exciting for us to start building momentum and start winning games.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
a junior, Dolores graduate is leader for Adams State Grizzlies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6328,6313],"tags":[44],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-107356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports-2-more-sports","category-sports-2","tag-dolores"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107356"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=107356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}