One goal of Fox Chapel Area’s girls basketball coaches and their athletes this season is to grow into a more player-led team on which the girls assume more accountability and responsibility for outcomes. The effort started in earnest last May and was proceeding nicely into the infancy of the 2023-2024 season. But an unexpected twist in plans pivoted some of their progress in the first home game of the season.
Or so it seemed at first. Looking back, there might have been a silver lining after all.
Talented senior Sarah Slember was injured in that game and now is out for the season. She says it is very disappointing that she will no longer be playing, but she still sees it as her responsibility to help her teammates succeed. Sarah and fellow senior Isabella Barbour are the only two players who have competed in a WPIAL Class 5A playoff game, and they want the others to feel the same excitement and sense of accomplishment.
Within hours after Sarah’s injury, her coaches made a swift decision. Because of her leadership, knowledge, and the respect she has earned from her teammates, they appointed her a student coach, and it could become her most important role yet.
“Even though my time as a player has been cut short, I would still like to have an impact on the team, even if that means I am not the one putting points on the board or taking charges,” says Sarah, who has been in this position before with injuries. “I think that this time around, and now being a senior, I can really voice my opinions to players and coaches. For the rest of the season, I will be helping to call plays in practice and giving corrections. I feel that my experience with this team has grown to the point where I am able to help from more of a coach’s perspective.”
Some of her Foxes teammates, especially the seniors and juniors, have played together since middle school, or even before that. They have matured together, gained confidence as a group and individually together, and all of them are eager to contribute to a player-led culture.
Head coach Marty Matvey says, “They have been become much more vocal as far as speaking with each other as teammates working toward a common goal, whether it’s during good times or challenging portions of games and practices.”
The fifth-year head coach adds, “We have focused on helping the players realize they have the power to make decisions and can improve or change as part of their growth and maturity process. We think it’s important to do this, and we’re encouraging it, so they know their voices are heard and respected. We step in when we are needed to help discuss some difficult situations, but having the players resolve some challenges on their own, with guidance from us, will prepare them for more difficult times later on in life.”
Sophomore point guard Lyla Jablon had a breakout freshman year and already has proven to be a talented force for the team. She says a player-led team depends upon a lot of trust and a willingness to accept that the effort they put into practices and games is their responsibility and not the coaches.
“We are really coming together as a team and have taken it upon ourselves to have a really good year,” she says. “We want to improve, so we are encouraging each other to always be energized and positive, and we want that drive to come from within ourselves. We all just want one goal, and that’s what’s best for the team. We also know that when we stick together is when we do our best.”
It has taken a village to shoot for a more player-led team has. It’s not just Sarah, Isabella, and Lyla who are leading the change. So are senior Skylar Byrnes and Annalese Bartolacci; juniors Shay Pick, Adina Rosen, Natalia Schaffer, and Bella Urso; and a deep bench of promising sophomores and freshmen.
There is, however, one more goal the players hope to achieve collectively – besides making it to the WPIAL playoffs – and that is to hand their coach his 100th career win at Fox Chapel Area.
At the beginning of the 2023-2024 season, he was nine away from the magic number. But when coach Matvey reaches that milestone, don’t expect him to take much credit for it. As he is prone to do with big achievements, he will credit the players, past and present, who helped reach that mark and the assistant coaches who also facilitated the teams’ successes.
No doubt it would be a nice gift during the holidays, or as the team begins the grind of its regular season in January 2024.