Clippers repeat
HANOVERTON — The official gap between the first and second place teams in the Eastern Ohio Athletic Conference girls basketball race ended up being two games, but it might as well have been a chasm.
Columbiana completed a dominate run through the league by outlasting United 48-10 on Monday.
The Clippers (20-0 overall and 14-0 in the EOAC) ended United’s three-year reign as champs, while winning the league outright after splitting with the Eagles and Southern last season.
Nobody was remotely close to Columbiana this season and the Clippers outscored the league 837-166. The champs won games in the league by an average of 60-12.
Even though the Clippers beat United 58-5 in the first meeting on Jan. 6. The Clippers were aware things would be different at United.
“There was no way I thought we were going to come over here and have a repeat performance,” Crismon said. “I was a realist. I knew they would throw their best punch at us because that’s what United does.”
The Eagles packed a tight zone on defense and actually had a 5-4 lead on the Clippers with 3:05 left in the first quarter. Even though the shots were not falling at the rate they liked, Columbiana’s defense was a sharp as it has been all season and the Clippers outscored the Eagles 19-1 the rest of the half. The rest was history.
The winning performance on United’s floor was a relief for the Clipper seniors.
“I’ve never won here,” Columbiana senior Ava Heinrich said. “This is the first time in my four years of high school I’ve won here.”
The second quarter was highlighted by Ellie Venezia who scored 10 of her game-high 19 points in the frame.
“She has that potential every night,” Crismon said. “She’s a pass first kind of kid even though she was one of our leading scorers last year. For her to step up when we needed her is a sign of a senior leader.”
Venezia said she realized she had to do more once a few shots started to fall.
“My confidence went up when I just hit the first one,” Venezia said. “My teammates kept getting me the ball because I was open most of the time, so it felt good to knock those down.”
Evy Rapp added 14 points for the Clippers.
Columbiana will end the season with road games at Poland on Thursday and at Western Reserve on Saturday. With the league being significantly down this season, the Clippers still have to figure out what their ceiling is.
“We’ve had that discussion many times and I keep trying to tell them how good they can be,” Crismon said. “I think the whole thing now is down the stretch you keep pushing.”
Heinrich thinks the Clippers can do damage going forward.
“I think we’ve had a lot of signature wins out of the league that established our dominance as a team,” Heinrich said. “We have two great opponents coming up but I think they are definitely within reach.”
United fell to 12-10 and 12-2 in the league.
United coach Cory Leek thinks the Clippers can end the regular season unbeaten and could possibly go a ways in the tournament.
“I haven’t seen Crestview play yet, but I would say Columbiana is the best team in the county right now,” Leek said.
Game notes
¯ The Clippers soon will turn their attention to the Div. VI tournament where the team is expecting big things.
The No. 4 seed Clippers will host No. 15 seed Apple Creek Waynedale on Feb. 15 in a sectional contest. No. 9 seed Springfield, No. 5 seed Mineral Ridge and No. 8 seed Canton Central Catholic also could be potential future opponents for the Clippers in the district tournament.
Leek thinks Canton Central Catholic is the real sleeper in that bracket.
“I know a lot about them because my cousin’s daughter plays for them,” Leek said. “I think they’re one of the sleeper teams in our area because of who they play. They play a lot of Div. I schools. They play Massillon. They play Perry. They’re going to quietly be a tough team to get through.”
¯ United is the 20th seed in the Div. VI tournament and will travel to No. 8 seed McDonald on Feb. 12 for a sectional opener. If the Eagles do win they’ll be one of the few teams in the state having to play two sectional games since the fields are now thinned out due to the expansion to seven divisions.
¯ Despite having a No. 4 seed in the Northeast Ohio region, the Clippers are ranked 34th in the state in Div. VI by MaxPreps. Columbiana’s strength of schedule is rated at -11.2 which is just about the par for the rest of the league.
United (-9.2), Southern (-11), Lisbon (-10.5), East Palestine (-12.2), Valley (-11.9), Wellsville (-10.2) and Leetonia (-10) all scored in the negative digits in schedule strength rankings.
A total of 17 of the top 20 teams in Div. VI had schedule strength ratings that were in the positive with the top two teams at plus 10 and above.
¯ Reagan Good led the Eagles with five rebounds. Maelee Smith added four rebounds.
¯ Columbiana won the jayvee game, 31-9. Layla McCartney scored 12 for the Clippers. Atlee Brinker had six points for the Eagles.
CO: 8-17-7-16–48
UN: 5- 1-4- 0–10
COLUMBIANA SCORING: Evy Rapp 4-6-14, Ava Heinrich 2-2-7, Megan Moser 0-0-0, Sydney Spaite 1-0-2, Annah Clemmer 2-0-4, Camille Jeffries 1-0-2, Tori Waselich 0-0-0, Ellie Venezia 7-0-19, Lexie Davis 0-0-0. TEAM TOTALS: 16, 8-14: 48.
UNITED SCORING: Maelee Smith 0-3-3, Camryn Cody 0-0-0, Marin Stryffeler 1-0-3, Ally Lacey 1-0-2, McKenzie Cope 0-0-0, Maezie French 0-0-0, Bailey McKEnzie 0-0-0, Reagan Good 1-0-2. TEAM TOTALS: 3, 3-8: 10.
Three-point goals: Columbiana 6 (Venezia 5, Heinrich), United 1 (Stryffeler).