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 “She’s a great athlete and basketball is her passion,” Lady
Toppers Head Coach Eric Leever says of freshman Skylar Hayes.
It was a Sunday night and the girls basketball season at Mount
Pulaski High School had been over for quite some time. In fact, all
the classes of Illinois girls basketball teams had finished their
seasons as the state finals had already come to a close and
champions were crowned. Even the winter sports awards banquet at
Mount Pulaski High School was over for another year.
So it’s time for a break from basketball, right?
Wrong. Even on a Sunday night you will find Skylar Hayes and her
dad, Steven, shooting hoops and talking basketball at the Ed
Butkovich Gymnasium. “This is what we do,” Steven smiled and
acknowledged their Sunday night routine, while a giggling
15-year-old Skylar nodded her head and said, “Yep.”
In particular on this Sunday, the father-daughter duo had traveled
to Springfield earlier in the day so Skylar could tryout for a
summer traveling AAU team called the Predators. Still pumped up from
that experience, she beamed, “I just had tryouts today. I did pretty
well. I hope to play on a team in Springfield.”
 No break from basketball in the near future for this young woman,
who will more than likely not just make the team but continue to
dominate on the court, just like she did for the Lady Toppers in her
first year.
The 5’9 guard/forward earned so many accolades this season, all
impressive, but perhaps the most amazing was being named to the
Illinois Basketball Coaches Association All-State Team. Skylar
earned a spot on the fourth team, a first for any freshman at Mount
Pulaski High School.
Hayes led the Lady Toppers in varsity points (585), rebounds (130),
field goal percentage (55%) and free throw percentage (78%). She sat
at the top of the area leaders in scoring for Springfield’s State
Journal-Register ALL SEASON while averaging 20.9 points per game.
Her season high was 33 points in a game, which happened twice in the
season, versus Maroa and Riverton. She was second on the Decatur
Herald and Review’s list of scoring leaders. She was also
all-conference first team for the Tomahawk Conference.
In addition to those honors, she was named to the all tournament
teams of the Clinton Thanksgiving Tournament and the Tri-City
Holiday Tournament. She just picked up the offensive award for the
Lady Toppers at the recent awards banquet but she could have made a
strong case for the defensive award as well. Her hustle on the court
led to her leading the team with 94 steals and 35 blocks. The only
category she did not lead in was three point shots (15) and she will
work on that in the future. She also recorded 56 assists for the
varsity team that finished with a 14-14 record.
It’s pretty obvious Skylar is dedicated to basketball and her hard
work and dedication to the game is paying off. But even she exceeded
her own expectations coming into high school. “I think I kind of
passed my expectations really. I mean, I am a freshman and I started
on the varsity team. I was not expecting to start and like play a
lot, like all games. It’s crazy. I did not expect that,” she said,
shaking her head. She also played a quarter of a junior varsity
basketball game and scored 139 points. A pretty solid season that
impressed Mount Pulaski Head Coach Eric Leever and he’s been around
long enough to see some fantastic talent in this game.
 “She did have a great freshman year. It didn’t take very long in the
season for her name to get around. We saw probably more box and one
defenses early in the year which I think that says a lot for her,”
offered the Lady Toppers coach.
He continued singing her praises, “As a 14-year-old young lady
playing against 17-18 year-old-girls, she held her own every day.
Her work ethics are great. She’s a gym rat. She wants to be in there
every day, every night, every weekend. She knows she has things to
work on, but if she keeps up the pace that she had this year, she’s
going to be a ton to reckon with in the next couple of years.”
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Note: Hayes just turned 15 in February as the season came to
an end.
“She really is a good kid. She’s very knowledgeable of the game,
VERY knowledgeable of the game,” Leever emphasized. “She’s very
competitive and that doesn’t mean not wanting to lose but she wants
to do everything she can to try and win. She’s just an all-around
great kid and phenomenal basketball player. It was really quite an
honor when they called and said that she had made Fourth Team
All-state as a freshman. I think that’s something that speaks for
itself right there. I can’t ask anymore of her. She gives you
everything she’s got every night.”
And every night, she pretty much has a basketball in her hand. Her
and her leading rebounder, dad Steven, go to the gym and shoot - the
ball and the breeze.
Her dad also serves as the assistant coach of the Lady Toppers and
he knows a thing or two about basketball himself, having played on
the 1984 Hilltoppers team that placed second in state. That team
knocked off Thad Matta’s Hoopeston East-Lynn Cornjerkers at the
state tournament, then took down the Providence St. Mel team, led by
Mr. Basketball Lowell Hamilton. Finally that year, Hayes and company
ran out of gas in the championship game and fell to the McLeansboro
Foxes and their star, Brian Sloan, son of former NBA player and
coach, Jerry Sloan.
The elder Hayes does not brag about those memories at all, but it’s
hard not to notice the beautiful purple banner that hangs in the
background as his daughter takes shot after shot and teases her dad
about being slow at rebounding the ball.
On this night the shooting the breeze conversation involved Skylar’s
transition of moving from one AAU team to potentially another. She
previously played on the Pizazz out of Bloomington and it was
obviously a tough decision for her to depart from that team, where
she had made a lot of friends, and now go to the Predators.
While the two teams play pretty much the same circuit, Steven said
Sky, as he calls her, was ready to venture out a little bit. “Our
goal is to see different coaching. She’s always played for either
me, or Jamie (Anderson from Mount Pulaski Grade School) or Eric.
There’s only so much one person knows, so the more people that can
guide her the better. Even if it’s not her game. Even if it’s a
slower game and that’s not her game, hopefully she’ll pick something
up,” said Steven.
Picking up something should not be a problem for the girl who also
knows the game of basketball quite well and continues to study the
game. Her next focus, however, involves picking up the weights. She
knows she has to get stronger to work on her outside game and
improve on her inside game, and she has that on her agenda. Boys
basketball coach Ryan Deibert has been Sky’s mentor, according to
Steven, and he has guided her in the direction of the weight room.
“She’s a sponge when it comes to talking to him,” said Steven of
Deibert.
Now just imagine the future for this young lady with a little
weight-training thrown into the mix. Like Coach Leever noted
earlier, “she’s going to be a ton to reckon with in the next couple
years.”
Writers note: Other teams are already taking notes now because he’s
right on. It sound’s cliche and no pun intended, okay, I lied, but
the 'Sky' is the limit for this talented athlete from little old
Mount Pulaski.
[Teena Lowery] |
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