By Bill Bray
TOLEDO – The Fremont Ross Lady Giants visited Whitmer High School taking on the 8-7 Lady Panthers Thursday evening and grabbed a 54-48 TRAC road win.
Whitmer grabbed a first quarter lead 16-14 thanks in large part with three of their eight three pointers on the night. Whitmer was living by the ‘three ball’ during the first eight minutes.
The Little Giant defense tightened up in the second quarter and held the ‘three-point’ queens to just a total of three points to take a commanding 29-15 lead at the half. The Giants cancelled out the triples by Whitmer in the first quarter as they made three of their own shots beyond the arc. Two ‘threes’ by Destiny Robinson and another by Hannah Sheidler helped Ross to 15 second quarter points.
“They (Whitmer) had nine threes against us at home,” coach Juan Vela said. “I knew coming in that they could shoot it. We lost our man a few times and they hit some big threes.”
As is customary with a tough team, Whitmer did not let the 14-point deficit bother them. The Lady Panthers can score a lot of point quickly and they did just that to start the second half. “We played very well in the first half,” Vela continued. “We talked in the locker room that Whitmer was not going to lay down and die and they certainly didn’t.”
They certainly did not lay down. By the end of the third quarter, behind four more three-point bombs, Whitmer closed the gap to just two points at 34-32. The Lady Giants found themselves in a dog fight going into the final quarter.
Whitmer got as close as 40-39 with 3:05 remaining in the contest. The seesaw battle continued throughout the last three minutes of the game though Whitmer never stole the lead. Ross led by as many as six points 47-41 with just 39.2 seconds remaining, but again two threes by Whitmer closed the Ross lead to just two, 50-48 with 17.7 seconds remaining. But fouling Destiny Robinson was not the right move by Whitmer over the final few seconds of the game as Robinson made some big foul shots down the stretch to secure the TRAC win.
Statistically the scorebook showed that the fourth quarter play by the Sophomore point guard made the difference for the Lady Giants. Robinson, 10 points in the first half and held to no buckets in the third quarter, exploded for 12 fourth quarter points to help her team prevail finishing with 22 points.
“She’s (Robinson) is a true point guard,” Vela said. “She wants to get her teammates involved. She thinks about her teammates more than her points. I think that is why we have won a lot of games. It gives the other girls the opportunity to score and makes the game fun.”
As coach Vela said, “It is about winning.“ I learned tonight that our kids are tough,” the coach said about his 13-3 Giants. “We played very well the first half, after Whitmer closed the lead to two points heading into the fourth, we started finding open people and attacking like we did in the first quarter. We hit some free throws down the stretch and at the end of the day I just want to see us win and we did tonight.”
Along with Robinson’s 22 points and four assists, Carma Johnson finished with 15 including seven of eight from the foul line. Johnson plays an aggressive brand of basketball that ends her up at the foul line and she certainly didn’t disappoint. Janiah Holmes had a great night on the boards. Going with her solid 11-point performance was 10 rebounds and three assists. Abby Cahill, while only scoring one point, had three big assists to help her team.
The 13-3 (8-1) Lady Giants travel to Central Catholic (14-0, 9-0) for a TRAC showdown Monday.
Abby Cahill (21) looks for a teammate to pass to during first half action.
Destiny Robinson’s 12 fourth quarter points was clutch for the Lady Giants.
Janiah Holmes (23) finished with 11 points, 10 rebounds and 3 assists during the TRAC battle.