By Bill Bray
FREMONT – Fremont Ross, behind a tense and exciting fourth period, passed their biggest test of the young season with a six-point victory over the Margaretta Polar Bears.
It is often said that a team is a better team when they get strong bench play. This means that the starting five cast is supported by a cast that comes in certain times through the contest to give the team a “spark.” The Lady Giants’ spark on this night was guard Jasmin Heidelburg. “She was a huge key in the second quarter coming through with two ‘three-point’ goals and then equally as important was an ‘and-one’ in the final period,” coach Juan Vela recalled. “It’s fun when you get a young girl that doesn’t have much varsity experience and she puts it all on the line and makes plays. She has been doing that the last couple games. She’s aggressive and she isn’t afraid to make mistakes. She goes out there and plays hard and someone like that fits very well into our team and what we are trying to accomplish.”
At the half the Lady Giants found themselves down by a single point at 28-27. The third quarter saw a total of 14 points scored on both ends of the court combined to put the Polar Bears ahead 36-33 entering the final period of play. The fourth quarter’s stat sheet shows that the Ross defense was the key ingredient as they outscored Margaretta 14-5 to ice the win.
Destiny Robinson garnered the most point for the Giants as the junior sharpshooter ended the night with 17 points. Heidelburg, sometimes spelling Robinson at the point guard position, contributed nine big points.
Senior Janiah Holmes, still dressed in a face mask protecting her broken nose, added eight points in the win while Carma Johnson and Lyndi Wolf collected five points apiece and Abby Cahill had a bucket for two and Natalia Alejandro finished with one of two from the foul line.
The Giants ended the night with nine 2- point shots, seven 3 pointers and eight of 11 from the foul line.
Next up for the 3-0 Lady Giants is their first Three Rivers Athletic Conference game Monday at Toledo Notre Dame. “They have a nice team, Vela explained “They press a lot and get after it. They aren’t the Notre Dame we are used to. Sometimes you run into them knowing they have a couple of Division I kids, but their coach does a really good job of coaching them up. They will make some noise this year and we are welcome to get our TRAC season started against a high caliber team like Notre Dame.”
Janiah Holmes (23) prepares to ‘take it to the hoop’.
Lyndi Wolf (32) fights her way in traffic.
Bench support is shown in this shot during fourth quarter action.
Jasmin “Spark Plug” Heidelberg (1) eyes up one of her two three point shots during second quarter action.
Destiny Robinson (11) has her usual All-District game leading the Giants with 17 points.