Suburban Life Athlete of the Week: Calli Kenny, Willowbrook, basketball, sophomore

Name: Calli Kenny

School: Willowbrook, sophomore

Sport: Basketball

Why she was selected: Kenny had 19 points, eight rebounds and five assists in Willowbrook’s come-from-behind 51-46 win over York. Kenny was voted by readers as the Suburban Life Athlete of the Week. Here is her interview with Sports Editor Joshua Welge.

Welge: Your team has had a challenging stretch of games lately. What have you all taken from those experiences?

Kenny: I think that we have talent, especially on offense, but we have realized that we need to move the ball more and start finding openings. Defense, too, especially recently in practice we have worked on help defense and recovering and boxing out. We have learned that those are some of our weaknesses from the few losses we’ve had. We’ve worked hard in practice to become better at those.

Welge: It seems like you’re driving and creating more for your offense than you did when you were a freshman. Is that an aspect of your game you’ve developed?

Kenny: Especially this year driving and and going up strong and getting fouls called is something that I have tried to do the most.

Welge: What are conversations with your sister like after games?

Kenny: We do talk about the game, we sometimes talk about what we did good. Mostly we talk about plays that worked and didn’t work and things that we could do better for the next game.

Welge: What is your schedule like right now between basketball and club volleyball?

Kenny: It’s pretty busy. Like three days during the week I have club volleyball after basketball. Then I have volleyball practice on Sunday and tournaments on weekends. It has worked out pretty well. I haven’t had to miss too much club and that’s good.

Welge: Willowbrook recently honored your mom as part of a Title IX celebration and you and your sister were a part of the presentation. What was that experience like?

Kenny: It was really cool to see her acknowledged after so many years. Most of my family was there. It was cool to be there celebrating her.

Welge: A lot of kids specialize in one sport, but you play three sports. Can you imagine giving one up?

Kenny: Not really. It’s hard for me to play one sport and focus on that sport. I feel like mentally it would be exhausting. If I am struggling in one sport I know I always have one more sport to go back to, to have a mix of everything.

Welge: Your volleyball team had a great postseason run. What will it take for the basketball team to have success in the playoffs?

Kenny: I think it’s just everyone coming together and playing their best game. Everyone from now until the end of the season preparing for the teams we’ll play, watching film, learning what their weaknesses are and taking advantage of it, putting that together and playing well. We have to have confidence in knowing we can do it.