‘Cats staring directly at program’s first title since ‘97

After the Woodmore girls basketball team defeated Elmwood, 47-38, in Jerry City last week it was a slow bus ride back to Elmore.

However, it was a fun bus ride — no one was complaining.

“It was a slow drive home in a winter storm on Thursday, but it was a good drive,” said Woodmore coach Kyle Clair.

You see, the win over the Royals earned the Wildcats a first place Northern Buckeye Conference tie with Elmwood. All Woodmore, 19-2 overall and 11-2 in the league, had to do now was defeat visiting Rossford (1-15, 0-11) Thursday. Or maybe, somehow, Elmwood (17-3, 11-2) slips up in their final league game at Fostoria (5-14, 3-9).

Either way, a co-championship or an outright championship, it would be the first for a Woodmore girls basketball team since the 1997 squad won a Suburban Lakes League championship.

Fans able to get to Elmwood High last week say they saw a good game. “There was a lot of juice in the air in the gym,” one parent told The Press, adding that it was “physical, fast paced, but yet relatively low scoring.”

Woodmore was “shaky” at the start and got behind early, but unlike the first game (49-43 Elmwood win), the Wildcats slowed the Royals down, fought back and Woodmore led by one at half.

Despite a good defensive effort by both teams, Woodmore out-rebounded Elmwood 43-23 and the Wildcats had 12 assists to the Royals’ five. Woodmore 6-foot-1 senior post, Brooke Allen, now the school’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder, had 19 points and 13 boards while Elmwood’s 6-0 senior standout playmaker, Brooklyn Thrash, scored 18.

Clair had his team well-prepared for the high-scoring Elmwood squad, which has scored 70-plus points five times and 60-plus an additional five times.

“We got a lot of one-on-ones down low with Brooke and our back-up post player (6-1 junior post) Camryn Ivy,” Clair said. “They played zone for much of the game and then went a little diamond and one on Brooke, and then we got her isolated a few times. She kept us in it the first half and then we got out in transition the second half and we held our lead.

“They didn’t shoot well — had a tough shooting night and our defense picked up. We did a really good job rebounding — we forced a lot of ‘one and dones’ and that helped us get out in transition a little bit, too.”

Lately, Allen, who is averaging 20.9 points and  11.1 rebounds, has seen her guards — 5-9 senior Ava Beam, 5-7 senior Greta Bauder, 5-4 sophomore Macey Bauder, 5-8 junior Sophie Blausey and 5-5 sophomore Alayna Hahn light it up from outside, which has helped immensely.

“Our guards are shooting the ball on the perimeter a little bit better, which is a huge plus for us,” Clair said. “It gives Brooke a little more room in there because teams have got to respect the three-point game now. That kind of started at Liberty Center (58-38 Woodmore win) last week and has continued, so we hope that keeps following us into the tournament.”

Late Monday night, the Wildcats’ held their first full blown practice since the win over Elmwood, and Clair and his staff made it clear to his players that there is still more to accomplish.

“We left a message (Monday) after practice — we had watched some film on Oak Harbor (ended up a 69-47 Woodmore win Tuesday) and this was kind of our first structured practice since Thursday, and we talked about that we just want to keep looking ahead. It was a test last week against Elmwood and we played well. We want to look ahead and not take anything for granted and keep taking care of business,” Clair said.

“The girls worked hard (Monday night) and I think we got the message across. We haven’t gotten anything yet, so we still have to do our job.”

Last year, four NBC schools, Woodmore, Elmwood, Lake and Eastwood, ended up advancing to the Division III sectional at Anthony Wayne’s Dick Albaugh Physical Education and Athletic Center. Lake, which had gone 0-6 during the regular season against the other three teams, managed to win that district championship and advance to the regional at Ohio Northern University, losing to eventual state qualifier Ottawa-Glandorf.

This year, Woodmore does not have to worry about D-III because they dropped down to D-IV, but there are challenges just as big there.

Woodmore, the No. 2 seed, opens by hosting Emmanuel Christian next Wednesday at 7 p.m. If the Wildcats win, they will host Arcadia on Saturday at 7 p.m. A win there would send Woodmore to the Fostoria district with the semifinal scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 25 and championship at 7 p.m. on Feb. 27. If top seed Toledo Christian continues advancing, the two teams would meet in the district final.

“It’s different. It seems, depending on how far we go, every team is really different,” Clair said. “Some teams are guard-oriented, and some teams like Toledo Christian obviously have talent everywhere. It’s a different animal and we’re going to take it one game at a time and hopefully that takes us far and we get on a good tournament run.

“This time of year we want to be playing our best basketball. I think we’re playing good basketball but I still think there is a little bit of room to play our best. We haven’t played what we are capable of yet. That is exciting that we still have some room to grow and hopefully keep improving here as we get into the tournament to finish up the year.”