The Daily Press Pass: Final Friday of 2018
Lead Summary
By
Stephen Forsha-sforsha@gmail.com
The time to wrap up the 2018 calendar year of sports is nearing ever so close, as this upcoming Saturday will complete the calendar year of high school athletics, so be on the lookout for a Top 10 list of moments from the 2018 season next week.
As for the couple days left on the schedule, there are still some exciting games left and teams doing great things on the court as they continue to work on their season. One of those teams is the McClain Lady Tigers, as they won Thursday night over the Adena Lady Warriors. The win came via a 59-27 score, but what stands out with the Lady Tigers is how this team is overcoming adversity and continuing to learn on the go.
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McClain stepped up in the third quarter with 19 points in their non-conference win, and for the game they played as a team with seven players scoring points. Not only that, but watching this team continue to improve each game is going to be exciting to watch.
Against Adena, Kyla Burchett led McClain with 17 points, making three 3-pointers in the first half. There is also the improved post play of Bryn Karnes this season, and she totaled 12 points on Thursday.
Kelli Uhrig has stepped up in a big way after being put in the starting lineup following the injury to Maddy Stegbauer, scoring 13 points in the win over Adena. Watching McClain this season, not many programs play team basketball the way they do, and with how well they play together on the court, plus their focus on defense, it is going to be interesting to see how much the Lady Tigers keep adding to their game as the season continues.
• Looking at the results from Thursday night in the FAC, congratulations go out to the Miami Trace Panthers boys program for gaining their first win of the season after defeating the Greeneview Rams, 56-48. Miami Trace is a young team, and they play better than their overall record shows.
• McClain was the lone FAC girls team to earn a win on Thursday night.
• Congratulations also go out to the McClain swimming teams as they won both the varsity boys and girls meets against Portsmouth Notre Dame on Thursday at MHS, plus the JV team won as well.
• As for the FAC boys standings, when it comes to conference wins and losses, the top four teams are all within one game of each other or tied for the conference lead going into the new year. Washington and Chillicothe are each 4-1 in the FAC, and right behind them are Jackson and McClain at 3-2. Overall for the season, all four of those teams have winning records.
• The SHAC boys leading teams are Ripley and West Union in Division I of the conference with RHS being 4-0 in the SHAC, while West Union is 4-1 in the conference. There is also Eastern Brown at 3-2 and North Adams at 2-1. Peebles is the leader of Division II in the SHAC at 3-2, and right behind them are Whiteoak at 2-2 and Fairfield at 2-3. This makes for some exciting basketball once 2019 rolls around. We’ll talk more about upcoming conference games at the start of 2019.
• SCHEDULE: Friday, Dec. 28, 2018
BOYS BASKETBALL
Frontier Athletic Conference
- Hillsboro at Blanchester: This non-conference game has the chance to be a competitive contest as the play of the Hillsboro Indians is improving each time out, and the Blanchester Wildcats are 3-4 overall this season with their most recent game being on Dec. 18 when they won at East Clinton in a Clinton County showdown. The Indians are 4-5 overall and are coming off a loss on Saturday, Dec. 22 by a 55-41 score. A player to watch for the Wildcats is Brayden Sipple, who is averaging 27.4 points per game. Hillsboro is led in scoring by Ethan Watson with 14.2 ppg.
- McClain at Adena: This year, the McClain Tigers have been exciting to watch and are much improved this season compared to the past few years as the Tigers are working to have their first winning season in quite some time. McClain (6-2) has two players who have really stood out this season in Dalton Mischal and Devin Carter, both of whom are playing at a very good level. Carter enters the game leading McClain with 15.6 ppg, and Mischal enters Friday’s game averaging 12.6 ppg. Adena has an overall record of 7-1 overall, with their most recent game being a 55-53 win over Unioto on Dec. 22.
- Unioto at Jackson: The Unioto Shermans enter the game with a .500 record of 4-4 overall, fourth place in the SVC with a conference record of 3-3. Unioto’s most recent game was a two-point loss to Adena at 55-53. According to SVCSportszone.com, in his past two games Isaac Little has scored 13 points vs. Adena and 22 points vs. Paint Valley. Cade McKee scored 20 points in the loss to Adena. Now for the Ironmen, they are third in the FAC at the moment with a 3-2 conference record, and they are 6-2 overall.
Southern Hills Athletic Conference
- Lynchburg-Clay at Paint Valley: This is always a fun matchup between neighboring county teams. The Mustangs (2-5) are a young team working on rebuilding their roster game by game, but they earned their second win of the season last Friday night when they defeated the Manchester Greyhounds, 70-64. That win was a standout performance by Ray Conner with 28 points, as he made 11 baskets from the field and went 6-of-7 from the free-throw line. Conner is averaging 16 ppg through the first seven games of the season. Paint Valley is 4-4 overall and 3-3 in the SVC, according to SVCSportszone.com. They lost their most recent game to Unioto, where PV was led by Caden Grubb with 18 points in that loss.
- Fairfield at East Clinton: Another young team in Highland County is the Fairfield Lions, as they are 3-4 overall this season and 2-3 in the SHAC season. Fairfield last played Friday, Dec. 21 when they gained a road win at Fayetteville. In that game, the Lions had two players score 20-plus points with Wyatt Willey with 23 points and Sam Buddelmeyer with 22 points. East Clinton is 0-7 overall as they are averaging 46.4 ppg this season.
- Other boys games on the SHAC schedule for Friday include: Fayetteville at Georgetown, North Adams at Manchester, Peebles at West Union, Eastern Brown at Western Brown and Portsmouth West at Ripley.
GIRLS BASKETBALL
- Games on the schedule for FAC include: Chillicothe at Bishop Watterson, Miami Trace vs. Madison-Plains and Washington at Roy C. Ketcham (N.Y.) in Florida.
- Games on the schedule for SHAC include: Zane Trace at Whiteoak, Fayetteville at Georgetown, North Adams at Manchester, Peebles at West Union and Western Brown at Eastern Brown.
The game that stands out for the SHAC teams is Whiteoak vs. Zane Trace for the fact one of the two teams in this game will gain their first win of the season in this matchup.
Both schools are working on rebuilding their program, and this could be a competitive game as both Whiteoak and Zane Trace are having similar seasons in the scoring column, and both match up well against each other.
• FINAL THOUGHTS BEFORE TIP-OFF
Though all of the games for Friday are mostly non-conference showdowns, this is a good week to have non-conference games with all the breaks in the schedule and not being on a normal routine.
This is also a good way to wrap up the 2018 part of the schedule and to finish the high school sports slate of games and then start all over in 2019. Enjoy the final Friday night of high school athletics for the 2018 year.
Once again, this column will be a daily look at not only high school basketball, but all high school athletics. Remember, as always, game stats, season stats and all information for high school athletics from Highland County and the surrounding area can be emailed to sforsha@gmail.com, and it will be featured either individually or in this daily look at high school sports.
Stephen Forsha is the sports editor of The Highland County Press. He can be reached at sforsha@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @HCPSportsEditor.
As for the couple days left on the schedule, there are still some exciting games left and teams doing great things on the court as they continue to work on their season. One of those teams is the McClain Lady Tigers, as they won Thursday night over the Adena Lady Warriors. The win came via a 59-27 score, but what stands out with the Lady Tigers is how this team is overcoming adversity and continuing to learn on the go.
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McClain stepped up in the third quarter with 19 points in their non-conference win, and for the game they played as a team with seven players scoring points. Not only that, but watching this team continue to improve each game is going to be exciting to watch.
Against Adena, Kyla Burchett led McClain with 17 points, making three 3-pointers in the first half. There is also the improved post play of Bryn Karnes this season, and she totaled 12 points on Thursday.
Kelli Uhrig has stepped up in a big way after being put in the starting lineup following the injury to Maddy Stegbauer, scoring 13 points in the win over Adena. Watching McClain this season, not many programs play team basketball the way they do, and with how well they play together on the court, plus their focus on defense, it is going to be interesting to see how much the Lady Tigers keep adding to their game as the season continues.
• Looking at the results from Thursday night in the FAC, congratulations go out to the Miami Trace Panthers boys program for gaining their first win of the season after defeating the Greeneview Rams, 56-48. Miami Trace is a young team, and they play better than their overall record shows.
• McClain was the lone FAC girls team to earn a win on Thursday night.
• Congratulations also go out to the McClain swimming teams as they won both the varsity boys and girls meets against Portsmouth Notre Dame on Thursday at MHS, plus the JV team won as well.
• As for the FAC boys standings, when it comes to conference wins and losses, the top four teams are all within one game of each other or tied for the conference lead going into the new year. Washington and Chillicothe are each 4-1 in the FAC, and right behind them are Jackson and McClain at 3-2. Overall for the season, all four of those teams have winning records.
• The SHAC boys leading teams are Ripley and West Union in Division I of the conference with RHS being 4-0 in the SHAC, while West Union is 4-1 in the conference. There is also Eastern Brown at 3-2 and North Adams at 2-1. Peebles is the leader of Division II in the SHAC at 3-2, and right behind them are Whiteoak at 2-2 and Fairfield at 2-3. This makes for some exciting basketball once 2019 rolls around. We’ll talk more about upcoming conference games at the start of 2019.
• SCHEDULE: Friday, Dec. 28, 2018
BOYS BASKETBALL
Frontier Athletic Conference
- Hillsboro at Blanchester: This non-conference game has the chance to be a competitive contest as the play of the Hillsboro Indians is improving each time out, and the Blanchester Wildcats are 3-4 overall this season with their most recent game being on Dec. 18 when they won at East Clinton in a Clinton County showdown. The Indians are 4-5 overall and are coming off a loss on Saturday, Dec. 22 by a 55-41 score. A player to watch for the Wildcats is Brayden Sipple, who is averaging 27.4 points per game. Hillsboro is led in scoring by Ethan Watson with 14.2 ppg.
- McClain at Adena: This year, the McClain Tigers have been exciting to watch and are much improved this season compared to the past few years as the Tigers are working to have their first winning season in quite some time. McClain (6-2) has two players who have really stood out this season in Dalton Mischal and Devin Carter, both of whom are playing at a very good level. Carter enters the game leading McClain with 15.6 ppg, and Mischal enters Friday’s game averaging 12.6 ppg. Adena has an overall record of 7-1 overall, with their most recent game being a 55-53 win over Unioto on Dec. 22.
- Unioto at Jackson: The Unioto Shermans enter the game with a .500 record of 4-4 overall, fourth place in the SVC with a conference record of 3-3. Unioto’s most recent game was a two-point loss to Adena at 55-53. According to SVCSportszone.com, in his past two games Isaac Little has scored 13 points vs. Adena and 22 points vs. Paint Valley. Cade McKee scored 20 points in the loss to Adena. Now for the Ironmen, they are third in the FAC at the moment with a 3-2 conference record, and they are 6-2 overall.
Southern Hills Athletic Conference
- Lynchburg-Clay at Paint Valley: This is always a fun matchup between neighboring county teams. The Mustangs (2-5) are a young team working on rebuilding their roster game by game, but they earned their second win of the season last Friday night when they defeated the Manchester Greyhounds, 70-64. That win was a standout performance by Ray Conner with 28 points, as he made 11 baskets from the field and went 6-of-7 from the free-throw line. Conner is averaging 16 ppg through the first seven games of the season. Paint Valley is 4-4 overall and 3-3 in the SVC, according to SVCSportszone.com. They lost their most recent game to Unioto, where PV was led by Caden Grubb with 18 points in that loss.
- Fairfield at East Clinton: Another young team in Highland County is the Fairfield Lions, as they are 3-4 overall this season and 2-3 in the SHAC season. Fairfield last played Friday, Dec. 21 when they gained a road win at Fayetteville. In that game, the Lions had two players score 20-plus points with Wyatt Willey with 23 points and Sam Buddelmeyer with 22 points. East Clinton is 0-7 overall as they are averaging 46.4 ppg this season.
- Other boys games on the SHAC schedule for Friday include: Fayetteville at Georgetown, North Adams at Manchester, Peebles at West Union, Eastern Brown at Western Brown and Portsmouth West at Ripley.
GIRLS BASKETBALL
- Games on the schedule for FAC include: Chillicothe at Bishop Watterson, Miami Trace vs. Madison-Plains and Washington at Roy C. Ketcham (N.Y.) in Florida.
- Games on the schedule for SHAC include: Zane Trace at Whiteoak, Fayetteville at Georgetown, North Adams at Manchester, Peebles at West Union and Western Brown at Eastern Brown.
The game that stands out for the SHAC teams is Whiteoak vs. Zane Trace for the fact one of the two teams in this game will gain their first win of the season in this matchup.
Both schools are working on rebuilding their program, and this could be a competitive game as both Whiteoak and Zane Trace are having similar seasons in the scoring column, and both match up well against each other.
• FINAL THOUGHTS BEFORE TIP-OFF
Though all of the games for Friday are mostly non-conference showdowns, this is a good week to have non-conference games with all the breaks in the schedule and not being on a normal routine.
This is also a good way to wrap up the 2018 part of the schedule and to finish the high school sports slate of games and then start all over in 2019. Enjoy the final Friday night of high school athletics for the 2018 year.
Once again, this column will be a daily look at not only high school basketball, but all high school athletics. Remember, as always, game stats, season stats and all information for high school athletics from Highland County and the surrounding area can be emailed to sforsha@gmail.com, and it will be featured either individually or in this daily look at high school sports.
Stephen Forsha is the sports editor of The Highland County Press. He can be reached at sforsha@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @HCPSportsEditor.