close

Stepping up: Clutter takes lead for Trinity basketball, is POY in basketball

6 min read
article image -

For her first three high school basketball seasons, Alyssa Clutter could blend in.

With a loaded roster around her, the Trinity girls basketball player helped the Hillers to a WPIAL title game appearance as a sophomore. As a junior, Clutter became one of the team’s top players, averaging 13.8 points per game and helping the Hillers return to the district final.

Although she established herself as a key contributor in that junior season, Clutter wasn’t always in the spotlight, thanks to a senior-laden squad that featured last year’s Observer-Reporter Girls’ Player of the Year, Courtney Dahlquist.

When Clutter entered her senior season this winter, the Hillers had a young team – three sophomores ended up starting for much of the year – and she couldn’t blend in anymore.

Now, she was the leader.

“As one goes, the rest follows,” Clutter said. “I learned that as the season went on. If I was emotionally distraught, so would the rest of the team be. So I really had to carry myself, and if I was having a bad game, I couldn’t let anyone see that in my face. I couldn’t let it bring me down because it mattered to the entire team.”

Though the Hillers didn’t get back to the WPIAL finals, Clutter undoubtedly succeeded in her new, more significant role.

She became Trinity’s best player on the court, averaging 18.1 points per game and directing the Hillers’ attack from her point guard position. As a result, Clutter has been named the O-R’s Player of the Year. She is the third Trinity player to win the award in as many years, the fourth in six years and the sixth overall.

Her coach, Kathy McConnell-Miller, was beyond impressed with Clutter’s ability to go from the ensemble to the lead.

“Alyssa was a significant part of last year,” McConnell-Miller said, “but she wasn’t always a player that was keyed on or that teams were trying to take out of a game. That completely changed for her this year. She became the focus of everybody’s defensive scheme.”

On and off the court, Clutter became the player her younger teammates admired, perhaps more than anybody.

“Sometimes, she was like a mom to them,” McConnell-Miller said. “Her car was always full coming to and from practice. She always got players where they needed to be. She was the one that was always texting them, encouraging them, challenging them. So I saw just a significant change in her that helped us as a team. I’m just so pleased with her transition from her junior year to her senior year.”

Clutter’s transformation into the heartbeat of Trinity girls basketball is more impressive with more context.

Clutter is a three-sport athlete who ended her high school soccer career with a school-record 98 goals and also is a state qualifier in track.

Two years ago, Clutter saw herself playing soccer, not basketball, in college. During her junior year, however, she made up her mind that of her three sports, basketball was the one she wanted to pursue beyond high school. This fall, she’ll achieve that goal when she begins her college career at Division I North Alabama.

“That was probably one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made,” Clutter said. “I love soccer as well. I enjoy playing it. But what really made the difference is what I always felt myself coming back to. It was always the ball that I wanted to pick up in my hands.”

As a senior, Clutter was the one Trinity wanted with the ball in her hands in the game’s critical situations.

“I felt like, this year, in basketball, having that on me really just showed how much heart I had that maybe I didn’t even realize,” Clutter said. “That I would not let my team lose. If I could do anything to prevent it, I would.

Perhaps the best example of Clutter’s “refuse to lose” mentality ironically happened in a game Trinity lost.

In the WPIAL 5A quarterfinal, the Hillers trailed McKeesport by double digits in the fourth quarter. But Clutter scored 18 points in the final period and put Trinity in a position to win in the game’s last seconds, and it took a 24-foot buzzer-beater by McKeesport’s Madeline Cherepko to defeat the Hillers by one point.

McConnell-Miller called it “probably the best performance I’ve ever seen out of a high school player in one quarter.”

And not just because of the 18 points.

“She identified what her team needed, and she did exactly that,” McConnell-Miller said. “She shot the ball, she got to the rim, she defended. She played the entire floor … Everything that our team needed (her) to do, she did. That fourth quarter was probably the most impressive quarter of basketball I’ve seen in a female athlete ever.”

The opposing coach was impressed, as well.

“The way Clutter was playing, I didn’t want to go to overtime,” McKeesport coach Amy Gumbert said. “That kid has a heart of steel.”

Now, Clutter and her iron heart will move on to Alabama.

At first, basketball wasn’t even Clutter’s top sport in high school. Now, she’s earned a scholarship to play it in college and plans to take full advantage.

McConnell-Miller looks forward to watching her leader at the next level but will miss her dearly at Hiller Hall.

“Everything that she’s done as a student-athlete at Trinity will, in my opinion, be something that these kids will forever be better for having played with her,” McConnell-Miller said. “She set the tone in practice and in games of what a Trinity student-athlete looks like. She’s committed. She is a person who makes her presence felt in everything that she does. She’s always the hardest worker at practice. So I believe her presence will be felt.”

Clutter will miss her coach and will miss her teammates – past and present – most of all.

“I love those girls,” Clutter said. “I love the young team we had this year, and I miss the team we had before. I think, being in that atmosphere around those girls, I wish I could play with them in college. I really enjoyed being around them and all of the laughs we had all year.”

Player of the Year — Alyssa Clutter, Trinity

Coach of the Year — Bryan Bennett, South Fayette

First Team

Alyssa Clutter, Trinity, Sr., G

Anna Durbin, West Greene, Sr., G

Ava Leroux, South Fayette, Jr., F

Journey Thompson, Peters Township, Sr., F

Maddie Webber, South Fayette, Jr., F

Second Team

Clara Paige Miller, Waynesburg, Sr., F

Kaitlyn Nease, Burgettstown, So., F

Kaley Rohanna, Waynesburg, So., G

Avana Sayles, Peters Township, Sr., F

Eden Williamson, Trinity, Jr., G

Third Team

McKenna DeUnger, Charleroi, So., G

Katie Dyer, Avella, Jr., F

Jillian Frazier, Burgettstown, Jr., G

Stellanie Loutsion, Canon-McMillan, Sr., G

Mercedes Majors, Monessen, Sr., G

Gemma Walker, Peters Township, So., G

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $3.75/week.

Subscribe Today