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AMANDA — Two short years after finishing 9-13, the Unioto Shermans have completely flipped the script by closing out a perfect 22-0 season.
CREDIT: Derrick Webb/SOSA
Unioto polished off its 22-game slate with an impressive 57-30 win at Amanda-Clearcreek — the fourth undefeated regular season in program history.
The Shermans have dominated throughout the winter with only one game — a 46-42 win at Piketon on Dec. 3 — being decided by fewer than 10 points. Their 22 wins have come by an average of 31.5 points.
“This feels great,” senior Jaelyn Himes said. “We’ve been working on this all year long and for the past four years. But we’re just checking one goal off. For us, we have a lot more to go.”
However, Monday’s contest didn’t start out as a cakewalk.
The Aces (12-10) came out of the chute with a high-level of physicality, denying the Shermans easy shots and dominating the glass on both ends.
After a shaky first two minutes, freshman guard Taylor Evans did her best to split the Shermans’ pressure while senior Emily Buckley was able to get into the lane for easy conversions. Although the Aces were trailing 12-7 after a quarter, they had a major advantage in rebounding as junior Rachel Weaver controlled the boards in the first eight minutes.
Two of the Shermans most experienced players, juniors Amaris Betts and Alexis Book, helped Unioto take the game over early in the second by combining for 14 of the team’s 18 points in the quarter.
Betts scored on a floater in the lane before connecting on a deep 3. Then, after freshman Milee Smith scored on a drive to the bucket, Book buried back-to-back triples to give the Tanks a 28-13 lead late in the half.
Amanda slightly cut into that deficit before the break, but still trailed 30-17 at halftime.
In the third, the Shermans changed two major issues to completely take control: defense and rebounding.
Defensively, the trio of Betts, Book and Maggie Holbert, alongside supersub Addison Mohan, began to assert themselves by forcing a bevy of turnovers, which led to easy baskets on the other end.
“Our defense is kind of a one of a kind thing,” Mohan said. “You don’t really see anything like it. It’s like a zone but it’s also like [a] man [defense] at the same time. Book and Maggie, when you put them in, the intensity level just skyrockets. It’s like a shot of energy.”
On the glass, the Shermans flipped what had been a shortcoming in the first half into a major advantage after the break. Behind the duo of Smith and Amelia Uhrig, they out-rebounded the Aces by a 22-8 count in the final 16 minutes.
“Having Milee down there with me makes it so much easier,” Uhrig said. “I know I can trust her to get rebounds with me and I don’t have to try and do it all myself.”
With a rebounding advantage and consistent defensive pressure, Unioto was able to hold Amanda to only three points in the third, leading to a 44-20 lead after three quarters of play.
The fourth saw much of the same play for the Shermans, but with a different set of players doing the damage. Regular rotation players Jozie Zickafoose and Himes were joined by the trio of Kendall Walker, Aidyn Danison and Cloie Fisher to help the team extend its lead, with Danison scoring five and Fisher scoring her first career point.
While the Shermans have taken care of business throughout the season, it has not been without some adversity, beginning in the preseason with an injury to junior Rayann Lynch.
The Tanks have also been without the services of Abbie Marshall and senior Sophie Coleman over the past few games, but their impacts to the undefeated season have not gone unnoticed.
“She’s our best friend. We love it,” Himes said of Coleman. “We’d been trying to get her back out [to play basketball this season]. It sucks that she’s hurt right now, but she’s going to make a comeback.”
Unioto was led in scoring by Betts with 15 points, while Smith added 12 points and a game-high nine rebounds.
Monday’s contest was the final game of the regular season for both teams,
Amanda-Clearcreek will now enter the postseason as a No. 7 seed in the Central District and will host the Columbus School for Girls on Feb. 14. Unioto, a No. 2 seed in the Southeast District, will host the winner of Gallia Academy and Vinton County on Feb. 16.
As for now, the Shermans will celebrate the undefeated regular season. But they’ll get right back to work in practice in hopes to make the longest tournament run they can.
“We have to get better at rebounding,” Mohan said. “[Amanda] killed us tonight with that. As a team, that’s our weakness. We want to leak out for the lay-ups but we have to remind ourselves that we can’t do that until we have the ball in our hands.”
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