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Struthers girls give coach 200th victory
By BRANDON JUDEH
POLAND
When the final buzzer sounded on Struthers’ 46-31 win over the Poland girls basketball team, Wildcats’ coach John Grandy carried off the game ball for his 200th career win.
“I told the team two things about my 200th win,” Grandy said. “One thing is I’m an old guy, two is I have coached a long time and at the rate I’m going I should get win 300 when I am 85 or 90-years old.”
Grandy didn’t want his milestone to overshadow the team’s performance, specifically on the defensive end where they held Poland (10-6) to just 19.5 percent shooting.
The first quarter ended with the Wildcats (16-1) ahead 12-5, as the Struthers defense held Poland to 1 of 12 shooting.
“The reason we won this game was defense, we had to pick up the intensity on defense because our offensive game wasn’t there and shots weren’t falling,” said Struthers guard Ashleigh Ryan.
Ryan led her team with 14 points and added three assists, while McKenna Shives scored 11 and recorded four assists.
Despite the slow start on offense, the Wildcats took a 26-9 lead at the half, outrebounding Poland by an impressive 23-6 margin.
Struthers allowed only six points in the third quarter, building a 22-point lead.
Poland’s Maura Bobby scored 13 of her game-high 20 points in the fourth quarter. She scored 12 points at the foul line.
Grandy said he is proud of all the hard work his team has put in throughout the season. He said sometimes it gets confusing during practice and games because he has three players with the same name: Ashley, Ashley and Ashleigh.
“We have Ashley Hefferon, Ashley Kane and Ashleigh Ryan,” Grandy said. “Let me put it this way; it’s bad if I yell ‘Hey that was a stupid play’ and all three look over at me.”
Kane agrees that sometimes it does get confusing when all three of them are out on the court.
“Once in a while it is a little confusing so most of the time he calls us by our last names to make it easier,” she said.”
Hefferon said she started having Grandy call her “Heff” so that there was no miscommunication.
With the season winding down the Wildcats have a chance at an All-American Conference title with games remaining against Niles, Howland and Liberty.
“Winning the conference would be a very big accomplishment, but the main thing that we do is we take it one game at a time, we don’t look ahead,” said Ryan. “Coach Grandy always says ‘one game does not define you.”