Small Town, Big Achievements

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – In an extraordinary season for the Central Michigan women's basketball team, it is no surprise that one of the senior tri-captains is an extraordinary student.

Senior Mackenna Kelly may be from a small town in Michigan, Frankfort, pop. 1,286, but she has big-time aspirations.

The Chippewas are 18-4, 11-0 in Mid-American Conference play, ranked sixth in the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 and carry and RPI of 17, far and away the best among MAC schools.

Kelly has never known anything but team success as a Chippewa. CMU has won each of the last three MAC West and league regular-season overall titles, it captured the MAC Tournament crown in 2018, and twice during her career the Chippewas have advanced to the NCAA Tournament.

And she is part of a close-knit group of players that know each other very well -- kind of like a small town.

Growing up in Frankfort, Kelly said she was a tomboy that always played sports. The list included wrestling and football in junior high.

"I was never intimidated by playing with a bunch of guys," Kelly said. "It felt natural and I was still one of the better ones."

She also held a camera as a youth, taking pictures of nature in Northern Michigan, sparking her interest in visual storytelling. Turn the reels 10 years later and Kelly has her own website featuring her work covering fashion photography to weddings.

"I didn't get into (shooting pictures of) people since coming here," she said. "The art of visual storytelling is interesting to me."

After graduation, she plans to hit the road.

"I want to go to Paris first," she said. "I have always had that itch to get out and always knew that I need something a little bigger."

But before Paris, there is some basketball business to finish. Three weeks remain in what is unfolding as one of the very best seasons in Chippewa history, and then there is the MAC Tournament and postseason play to contend with as well.

Kelly said she is determined to help her team continue this exceptional season, which she said has been as exciting as ever. She is playing a much more prominent game-day role this season, averaging 16.3 minutes per game after playing sparingly in her first three seasons as a Chippewa.

"We made it important to just live in the moment and keep working hard every day," she said. "It has been paying off."

The program has undergone a leadership change – longtime assistant Heather Oesterle succeeded retired Sue Guevara prior to the season – and the transition has been seamless. Cohesiveness and buy-in among the veterans have been key, Kelly said.

"We have our own little clique and I think that translates and is one of the most important things when you are talking about a team," she said.

Small town, big city, it doesn't matter when you have a team and a dream, she said.

"It's important to have big dreams," she said. "All you have to do is believe in yourself."