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Howland gets shot at Twinsburg
By Doug Chapin
AKRON
When the seniors on the Howland High girls basketball team were in eighth grade, the Tigers’ varsity squad reached the 2008 Division I regional championship game.
Since then Howland has been stalled at the district semifinal round, losing three straight, twice to state power Twinsburg and last year to Shaker Heights.
On Thursday at Ellet High, the 2012 seniors finally advanced to a district final, edging Hudson, 54-53. The Tigers will play Saturday at 1 p.m. in the district championship game against Twinsburg.
“I still say this is the best team I’ve ever had and they may not ever get out of the district,” Howland coach John Diehl said. “Maybe this is their year, though, after tonight, we’ll see. It would have been a bad feeling for me and for them not to make it to a district championship game and play on Saturday afternoon.”
Taylor Williams stood out, as usual, for Howland with 24 points, 15 rebounds and five blocked shots. Olivia Nicholas provided great support with 13 points, seven assists and six rebounds, and Erika Nites added 10 points, six rebounds and five assists.
“Olivia might have played one of her best games today,” Diehl said. “She broke the press, we wore them down a little bit and she was able to dribble through it a few times. That always helps. ”
The Tigers (22-1) struggled against the long, athletic Explorers (18-5), never leading in the game by more than two points and trailing by as many as nine, 25-16, early in the second quarter.
But a 13-5 run to end the first half left Howland behind 30-29 at the break despite 14 turnovers. Williams scored seven points in that run and Nicholas and Paige Loychick each nailed a 3-pointer.
“Hudson pressures, they play eight girls and they try to wear you down. In the first quarter they just shot the lights out, it was phenomenal,” Diehl said. “I think they had six 3-pointers in the first half. They weren’t 18-4 coming in for no reason. But this is really the first time we’ve been pressured this year that it gave us a problem.
“Mount Lebanon, we played down there and they pressured us like this, and it was like boom, boom, boom moving the ball. We just had seven turnovers the whole game. Maybe the girls were a little nervous tonight, a little scared, too, that this could be it and they don’t want it to end.”
Howland held its largest lead, 36-34, midway through period three and led 43-42 headed into the final quarter. The lead changed hands six times in the period and Williams scored the last nine of Howland’s 11 points in the quarter, including a 5-for-6 performance at the foul line.
Trailing 53-50, Taylor cut the lead to one with two free throws at the 1:45 mark, then canned two more with 1:16 left in the game for the contest’s final points. She blocked a Hudson shot at the other end with about 10 seconds remaining to help close out the win.
“The last six, seven possessions every play we called was to Taylor. You’ve got to go with your stud at the end of the game,” Diehl said. “She either got fouled and she scored a couple baskets. That’s what we did and that’s what we’ll do every game that’s close at the end.”