Thursday, February 24, 2011
Special to the Vindicator
Photo
Struthers' Katelyn Ardale battles Samii Ramer (10) for the ball during their game Wednesday night in Austintown.
Struthers 52
Niles 25
Next: Struthers vs. Southeast, Saturday, 2:30 p.m. at Austintown Fitch
The Struthers coach guides his team past Niles, while West Branch starts strong to defeat Hubbard
By Joe Scalzo
AUSTINTOWN
Asking Struthers High girls basketball coach John Grandy to brag about himself is like asking a dog to purr, so when he gripped the game ball after winning his 100th game Wednesday night, he did what comes naturally.
He joked about it.
“No. 1, I’ve had great players,” he said following a 52-25 win over Niles in a Division II sectional semifinal at Fitch High. “No. 2, I’ve had good coaches. And No. 3, I’m old.
“Longevity has its price.”
Grandy is 100-69 in eight years at Struthers, which puts him more than 300 wins behind his predecessor, John Hritz, who is now at Liberty. And its puts him more than 400 behind the Valley’s winningest coach, Boardman’s Ron Moschella.
“I’m going to catch him,” Grandy said of Moschella. “They may prop me up. It won’t be pretty.”
Amanda Ditman scored 16 points and had seven rebounds for the Wildcats (17-4), who won last year’s district crown. Katelyn Ardale added 10 points, six rebounds and five assists. Struthers will meet Southeast at 2:30 p.m. Saturday.
When a reporter told Grandy he didn’t know much about Southeast, Grandy smiled and said, “Neither do I. I’m just going to yell ‘defense.’”
Finally, he turned serious. For a few seconds.
“It’s a lot of people, it wasn’t just me,” he said of the 100 wins. “My name will be on the ball, but they couldn’t put all the names on there. And that goes all the way back to my parents, just raising me the right way to be the right kind of person.
“It’s a humbling thing, but it’s a weekend for Hritz and Moschella.”
Katie Hitchings scored 14 points for Niles (2-19).
In the early game, West Branch jumped out to a 20-4 lead after the first quarter en route to a 50-29 victory over Hubbard.
Tia King had nine points and six rebounds for the Warriors (16-5), who will play Cardinal Mooney at 7:30 p.m. tonight. West Branch defeated the Cardinals 46-32 on Feb. 12, which was Mooney’s last regular season game.
“There’s some comfort [from winning the earlier matchup] and there’s some familiarity there,” Warriors coach Walt DeShields said of Mooney. “The key is to continue to play good defense and also respecting that they’re a good basketball team.
“Despite them being 8-12, they played a tough schedule and they’re going to come ready to play.”
West Branch lost to Mooney in last year’s regular season only to come back and beat the Cardinals in the tournament.
“Hopefully they don’t turn that on us tomorrow night,” DeShields said. “My girls’ goal is to get back to district again like last year and get over the top this year.”
Andrea Wingett scored nine points and Brandi Snyder added eight points, five assists and three steals for West Branch, which struggled a bit over the last three quarters but was never really in danger of losing.
“I’d rather win ugly sometimes than lose pretty,” DeShields said.
Senior Allie DeLuco scored 11 points with seven rebounds for Hubbard (6-15), which cut its deficit to 11 in the third quarter before the Warriors pulled away.
“It was a bad start,” said Eagles coach Ross Stoffer. “After that, we plugged it up and we thought we made them make some errors.
“If we had hit some shots and got it under 10, we could have made a run there.”
Krista Julian added seven points and sophomore Courtney Sargent had six points and seven rebounds in the loss.
“It shows a lot about the heart of our five seniors to stick with it and continue to fight and play hard like we had a chance to win the entire time,” Stoffer said. “We’re led by our captains Krista Julian and Allie DeLuco and it’s been like that all year.
“It didn’t matter what was happening, whether it was good or bad, they played hard. And that’s all you can ask for out of your players.”