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It
was a day of frustration on the floor for Tri-Village guard Shaye
Thomas Thursday in Columbus. Stopping
Thomas was a key move for Hiland
to beat the Patriots. CNO Photos by Doug Randolph
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Keeping Thomas
off balance key for Highland Hawks
By George Starks
COLUMBUS- “The more they pressured me the harder it was to get into our
offensive rhythm.”
Those were the words of Tri-Village guard Shaye Thomas after the Lady
Patriots loss to the Hiland Lady Hawks Thursday.
Staying in the face of Thomas seemed to be the trick in shutting
Tri-Village down Thursday as the Patriots fell 53-47 in the state
semi-finals of the OHSAA girl’s basketball tournament.
In the eyes of Hawks coach Dave Schlabach, stopping Patriots senior
Kayla Linkous was huge, but frustrating Thomas was key.
“We spent a lot of time studying Linkous and we have a tremendous
amount of respect for her. Twenty-six other teams have tried it and
failed so we had to figure something else out,” said Schlabach. “We
decided to focus and put pressure on the guards and Thomas was the
point of that focus. Shutting Linkous down in the first half allowed us
to stretch things out a little bit with their guards.”
The defensive agitation started with sophomore Emily Yoder. Yoder
started the season on junior varsity and was given the team after the
start of the season as a starter. According to Schlabach, Yoder can be
very annoying.
“On defense, Emily is relentless and she’s annoying,” said Schlabach.
“Our first scrimmage of the year, she was on the j-v team and a couple
of weeks later, she was a back-up on varsity. Somewhere along the line,
we turned the team over to her and she’s done a great job leading this
team.”
“I pride myself on my defense. I love to play defense,” said the Hawks
sophomore. “I don’t mind being annoying in that way at all. I like to
be annoying on defense. It’s really fun to be annoying to good players.”
“We thought our guard pressure was really, really good,” Schlabach
added. “We were playing a nine man rotation and our kids were giving us
a lot of good minutes.”
On offense, senior McKenzie Miller did what many teams have trouble
doing… shooting the three in the collage arena. Miller had four treys
and a total of 17 points to lead her team.
“I worked so hard getting used to the way things are here because there
are no walls,” Miller said. “In warm-ups, it was my goal to feel
comfortable shooting from out there. I shot maybe 20 shots from out
there. I felt good shooting.”
In the state title game, Arlington (27-1) beat Berlin Hiland (19-9) by
a score of 52-37 Saturday in Columbus.
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