Best of the best
Already recognized locally, Molly Rottmann and Rob Carmody have now garnered accolades on a state level.
Rottmann, the girls basketball coach at Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic, and Carmody, the boys mentor at Mars, both guided their respective teams to the state championship game in Hershey in mid-March.
Rottmann saw her team earn the program's first state title in 21 years, finishing the season with a record of 28-3. Carmody's Planets fell short in the state final, but turned in the best season in program history, going 23-7 overall.
Rottmann has been selected as Pennsylvania Sports Writers Class A Girls Coach of the Year and Carmody earned Class AAA Boys Coach honors.
Both were chosen as Butler Eagle Coach of the Year last month.
“It's a huge honor,” Rottmann said of the state nod. “There's a lot of great coaches out there who will never win it, but I have great assistant coaches and players around me. It says so much about our team.”
Rottmann was able to successfully mesh the talents of the state's Class A Girls Player of the Year, junior forward Sam Breen, along with fellow starters Dani Short, Ashley Robbins, Kylie Huffman and Abby Goetz and several role players from the bench.
“You have to handle each player a bit differently,” Rottmann said. “They're kids and different things motivate different people. Some kids are more able to push themselves. You have to know what buttons to push.”
CWNC will be losing three seniors from its state title team — Goetz, Lillia Smyers and Elyssa Paras.
Rottmann will soon oversee an intriguing point in CWNC's history. While the Trojanettes will be a Class AA team according to their enrollment next season under the PIAA's restructured classifications, the program has chosen to play up in Class AAAA.
“That is going to bring its own challenges,” said Rottmann. “We are already looking at our schedule. We aren't worried about our record and want to play teams that will make us better. We feel we can have a pretty special team next season.”
Carmody knew his team needed to acquire an edge compared to the 2014-15 squad, which lost to Cathedral Prep in the PIAA quarterfinals.“We lost that game because they were tougher than us,” he said. “This year (in the state semifinals), we went up against Bishop McDevitt. They had out-toughed every team they played and we out-toughed them.“We showed people from Clearfield, Harrisburg and Philadelphia how physically and mentally tough our kids are. It was a great (state playoff) run.“My only regret is that we didn't have more time to enjoy it. From the end of the semifinal to the buzzer at the championship game was three days, but it felt like 15 minutes,” he added.Carmody admits there were a few question marks surrounding the team before the season began, but not regarding talent.“We had 12 seniors this year,” he said. “Can you count on everybody to keep the chemistry? To be inclusive? Are all 12 seniors going to remain team players?”The answer to all three was “Yes”, which helped to fuel one memorable season.“It was so much fun for me,” said Carmody, who deflected attention away from himself. “It (Coach of the Year honor) is very humbling. I didn't take any shots, get any rebounds or stop anybody on defense.“It's a matter of the guys going out and doing the things they are capable of doing.”
