43
Ursuline’s Harris reaches 1,000 points
By Gary Housteau
YOUNGSTOWN
It took just 24 seconds for Dayshanette Harris to become only the second sophomore in Ursuline’s history to reach 1,000 points Thursday night. But she wasn’t finished.
Harris scored 17 of her game-high 32 points in the fourth quarter as the Irish beat Villa Maria Academy, 59-50.
“To be thrown in a conversation as the second player alongside Courtney Davidson, who did it a decade ago, that’s a big name to be in a conversation with. So it’s absolutely a great accomplishment,” said Ursuline head coach Vannessa Dickson.
“A thousand points for anybody is a great accomplishment but as a sophomore I think it shows her maturity. She definitely battles with a lot of kids that are bigger than her, she battles with a lot of kids that are older than her and she gets her points against quality opponents. A thousand points for anybody is a great accomplishment but for her this is definitely a great stepping stone and hopefully we can get that 2,000th here sometime in her career.”
Play was stopped to present Harris with the game ball and she in turn presented it with hugs to family members.
“It’s awesome,” Harris said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I’m proud I was able to do it. But I wouldn’t be here without my coaches and my teammates pushing me to be great every day.”
Harris believes her best is still yet to come.
“I feel like I get better every game. There’s always room to get better,” she said. “So I’m going to strive every day to get better and better. One thousand is just the beginning. But I’m glad I was able to follow in [Courtney Davidson’s] footsteps and do something great.”
Harris did just that in the fourth quarter.
With the score tied at 39 after three, Harris stepped her game up, scoring 17 of Ursuline’s 20 points in the quarter to give the Irish a nine-point victory.
“Villa Maria is definitely a great program out of [Erie] Pennsylvania — they’re phenomenally coached,” Dickson said. “Last year we played them, we lost 49-22. So this year my kids fought. We’ve been in close games the last six or seven games so this is nothing new for us. The nice thing is we’re starting to pull out wins in the end so I’m very happy with today.”
Villa Maria head coach Doug Chuzie thought the better team won the game.
“I thought we came in and we ran into a very good team tonight,” the coach said. “We struggled to keep them in front of us, I thought they got to the hoop a few more times than what we’d like. Unfortunately I thought we had some opportunities to knock down some shots and some nights they don’t go in. They played better than we did tonight so congratulations to them.”
Sydney Palermo led Villa Maria with 13 points, Madison Demski had 11 and Julia Casella had 10.
Chuzie thought it was more than Harris, who also grabbed five boards, that did in Villa Maria (14-5).
“You know what Day-Day is going to do, she’s going to get to the rack and create a little bit,” he said. “But I thought [No.] 24 made a big difference. When [Destiny] Goodnight hit a couple of big 3s I thought that took the wind out of our sails a little bit.”
Goodnight hit four 3-pointers, scored 15 points and added five rebounds. Anyah Curd chipped in with eight points and a team-high six rebounds. Goodnight and Curd are also sophomores.
“Destiny is one of the best shooters we have. She did a phenomenal job,” Dickson said. “To me, that’s not anything new. I see that every day in practice. That’s the Destiny that I know so that performance doesn’t surprise me one bit.”
Curd handled Villa Maria’s size in the paint.
“Anyah Curd is one of those kids ... she goes to battle every single day,” Dickson said. “She’s probably the kid that I’m the hardest on, on the entire basketball team. She does exactly what I ask her to do and she fights. That’s what Anyah does every single game, she bangs with the big kids and usually controls the rebounds.”
The Irish improve to 11-9.
“This is a huge win for us,” Dickson said. “We’ve had some games circled on the schedule and this is definitely one of them. They handled us pretty well last year and this was absolutely one we had marked on the calendar so this is absolutely a huge win against a great program.”