Double threat: Yeager scores 1,000 points in Glenwood OT win but soccer remains her future
In the sport that will provide her with a full-ride athletic scholarship, putting your hands on the ball is a penalty offense. In the sport that supposedly is her lesser-skilled, there is nobody in whose hands her Chatham Glenwood teammates wanted the ball more than Makenna Yeager.
Case in point: Friday night at Sacred-Heart Griffin’s Jim Belz Gymnasium, 26.5 seconds left in regulation with the score 42-39 Cyclones. Coming out of a timeout, the Titans worked the ball around the key when Yeager suddenly popped out behind the 3-point line, settled the ball in her hands, took aim and let fly a high, arcing shot that made the nylon strings dance as it fell through.
Those were points 996, 997 and 998 of her four-year basketball career at Glenwood. When the four-minute overtime was over, Yeager’s career point total sat at 1,004 and the Titans (9-1, 4-0 in Central State Eight) had a 53-50 victory over the Cyclones.
As she posed with family and friends for pictures commemorating her inclusion into the 1,000-point club, Yeager allowed for some reflection on how far her basketball career has come since being a quiet, nervous freshman.
“Oh, my gosh, coming in as a freshman, I was so scared,” said Yeager, who finished with a game-high 20 points. “I had just idolized them for so long at basketball and I was always just dreaming of becoming a great player here. It just means so much to hit 1,000 points. That’s just crazy to me.”
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To the beaming youngsters literally and figuratively looking up to her after the game, the formerly scared freshman is now a senior role model for the next wave of Glenwood athletes. But, again, basketball isn’t her best sport.
Yeager will enroll next fall at the University of Illinois Springfield on a soccer scholarship, but she could have chosen basketball as well. A defender, Yeager is blessed with good speed and hand-eye (and feet) coordination. Her leadership skills were apparent in the Friday night win over SHG, too.
Despite missing some of the second half because of foul trouble, Yeager re-entered the game late and took charge. Not only did she make the clutch 3-pointer to send the game to OT, but she also scored the first basket of OT for her 1,000th point and gathered teammates around her a couple of times to preach composure in defensive situations. None of which surprised her first-year coach Alyssa Riley.
“The deal with Makenna is she puts so much pressure on herself, and sometimes it works against her. But then, in pressure situations where pressure is put on her from outside forces, she takes control, she takes it over and she does what she needs to do,” Riley said. “She’s an amazing person. She’s our leader.”
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Yeager’s mother, Michelle, coached her daughter in middle school basketball at Glenwood and said it “broke her heart a little” that she chose soccer as her top sport to pursue a college scholarship. But now that she’s signed and sealed to join UIS, there is nothing but joy.
“I think the coach and the fit for the school she chose kind of bumped it maybe even more than the sport,” Michelle said. “But from the time she was little, she always chose to go to the gym with me to shoot baskets, versus going to friends' things like birthday parties and those kinds of things. She always picked her sports and she always put in the extra time, and I think that’s paid off.”
Despite having her short-term future already set, complacency is a word that won’t be part of Yeager’s vocabulary. The Titans, winners of nine straight games, should have a shot at a state title in hoops, and in spring comes soccer where the same chance exists.
“It definitely takes off some pressure. I committed early. I was just having so much stress with the recruiting process, but I love UIS, I love the coaches there, so I was just happy to get that thing off my shoulders,” Yeager said. “For right now, I just want to play basketball as long as possible and go as far as we can. We’re going to work our butts off and we’ll see where that takes us.”
Adrian Dater is a freelance writer for The State Journal-Register. He can be reached through the sports department at sports@sj-r.com.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: IHSA basketball: Soccer is her No. 1 sport but Yeager proves a star on hardwood
