Tourney continues
State high school basketball tournaments continued Friday.
Totsy Manning hugged every one of her players, working her way down the bench, spending a moment with each of her girls.
Each is special for the Cashion High coach. But only one is her daughter.
“I love them all,” Manning said Friday after Cashion beat Howe 66-48 and advanced to the Class 2A finals. “I treat ‘em all like they’re my own.”
She glanced at daughter, Sydney.
“But this is pretty special. This is our last time together.”
On a Saturday when high school basketball champions will be crowned in the state’s five biggest classifications, there will be lots of special storylines. Players who have overcome. Teams that have prevailed.
But no one will have a Championship Saturday that is more special than the Mannings.
Sydney, a senior, is the oldest of Totsy and Hank Manning’s children. The only daughter, too.
Since Totsy has coached girls basketball for years, she’s coached tons of Sydney’s games. Summer teams. School teams.
Once already they’ve won a state title while at Deer Creek.
But this past offseason, Totsy took the coaching job at Cashion and Sydney changed schools for her senior season. Both felt good about the move. Sydney grew up playing summer ball with Cashion seniors Presley Payahsape and Talli Robison, so she knew how good they were, and Totsy liked the idea of a slower pace of life in Cashion instead of suburban Edmond.
“There’s been many times that I haven’t been able to enjoy watching (Sydney) play because I was thinking about the next day, the next day, the next day,” Totsy said. “This year, I thought, ‘I really want to enjoy watching her play. I want to take a breath.’
“Cashion’s really helped me do that.”
Now, don’t misunderstand — Totsy Manning, one of the state’s most successful girls basketball coaches, isn’t getting soft. She still works hard and coaches hard.
Her team is evidence of that.
Cashion faced a tough and talented team in the semifinals. Howe has a dynamic scorer in Jalei Oglesby and a supporting cast that is feisty. The pressure they apply would crush most teams, and for a time during the second half, it got to Cashion.
A 23-point lead was cut to 13 in five minutes.
But Cashion kept its cool. It stopped turning the ball over, got a few stops on defense and maintained a two-touchdown lead the rest of the way.
That allowed Totsy Manning to take out her starters with a few minutes left, including Sydney, who finished with a team-high 20 points and 12 rebounds.
It allowed the coach to start thinking about Saturday, too.
Mother and daughter say they’ve handled the whole senior year thing well. They haven’t had any big water works. They even kept their emotions under control at Senior Night.
But basketball is each’s biggest passion.
“We sit down and watch games for hours,” Sydney said.
How many mothers and daughters can say they love doing the exact same thing?
And how many mothers of teenage daughters can say that they get to share in something like this?
Even though she credits Sydney for making this work, Totsy has been diligent in her approach to being the coach-mom.
“When we’re off the court, I’m Mom,” she said. “It works really well because we understand the difference between what happens on the court and what happens at home.”
And yet, Saturday on the court at The Big House, there will likely be moments where the coach becomes the mom, where the guard becomes the daughter. Win or lose in this last game together, there will be emotions neither Totsy nor Sydney have experienced.
“I haven’t really thought about it much,” Sydney said, “because I don’t want to.”
But the Mannings can rest in the fact they have maximized this special run. They’ve stretched it all the way to the state finals, gone all the way to the last day of the season.
They’d have it no other way.
“Next year’s gonna look real different,” Totsy said, “but tomorrow’s gonna be pretty special.”