Student-Athlete of the Week: Molly Slupik

While Niwot High School girls basketball's first win of 2022-23 was inarguably a team effort, few Cougars were as critical to the victory as Molly Slupik.

A junior starting forward, Slupik had dominant runs in multiple aspects of her game, all contributing to a 42-39 win at Skyline High School on Jan. 14. Her physicality on the boards, particularly on the offensive side, stood out the most for head coach Jon Hill.

"I told her she's got to get on the offense glass," Hill said. "She worked her butt off and got rewarded for doing it."

The Cougars recorded a season-high 16 offensive rebounds with the help of Slupik's textbook box outs. As a defense, forcing a missed shot and then watching the offense maintain possession can be deflating, and Slupik did plenty to frustrate Skyline's D.

Slupik has even had some fun this season doing the dirty work of rebounding. She said that she and fellow Niwot forward Evelyn Melis compete with each other to see who can grab the most rebounds. Entering January, Slupik held a slight 45-34 lead.

"We box out a lot and she and I get a lot of rebounds," Slupik said. "We hype each other up when we're getting rebounds because we have a little bit of a competition going to see who can get the most and that keeps us improving."

As one of the few upperclassmen on Niwot's roster, her friendly competition with Melis is only a small example of how Slupik values chemistry with her teammates.

"The beginning of the season was a little rough but as we started to get together with our teammates, we got our relationships in a good spot and then our skills and stuff started improving from there," Slupik said. "Now we're here and we have a good team environment."

In Niwot's first win, Hill trusted Slupik to defend Skyline's leading scorer heading into the game, Aiyana Dothard. Slupik rose to the challenge and limited the Skyline junior to just 3-for-10 from the floor.

"She had some of her best practices (leading up to Jan. 14), and she's just been a workhorse for us," Hill said of Slupik.

Offensively, Slupik scored all five of her points in the first quarter, helping Niwot to an early 7-2 lead.

Although the Cougars aren't where they'd like to be at 1-9, their showing in win No. 1 suggests better results are possible moving forward.

"It's super exciting," Slupik said. "We're all super hyped with each other. We're making sure to congratulate our teammates because everybody did something well in that game."