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Prior to the season, this writer sat in Lady Rider head coach Dave Reasbeck's classroom at Ferry High School conducting an interview for the season preview.
He stated that one of his goals for the season was "to win something."
And he didn't mean it had to be a state, regional or even district. The Lady Riders had been snake-bitten the past couple of seasons with injuries and it cost them in crunch time when the games mattered most, so one of his other goals was to stay healthy.
Thus far, all's been well from that perspective.
On the other side of that equation, the Lady Riders are on the verge of winning at least one thing and many other goals could follow in the coming weeks. Ferry is playing as well as any girls' basketball team in the area right now.
That's no more evident than last Saturday's win over John Marshall. The Lady Riders were upended earlier in the season in Glen Dale and trailed by 10 entering the fourth period. However, guards Courtney Coleman and Brittany Burch picked it up and post Shae Moreland was a force on the defensive end.
Earlier in the season the Lady Riders may have folded their tents, but Ferry seems to be feeding off the emotion of their head coach. They are taking the court expecting to win every game and a victory tonight over Edison would all but wrap up their initial Buckeye 8 title.
Ferry also appears to have all but wrapped up the top seed in the Class 3-A OVAC Tournament, meaning there are reasons to believe that the Lady Riders may win more than one thing this season especially if the approach remains the same.
SHADYSIDE BOYS SHOOTING
The Shadyside Tigers are one of the teams that many hoop junkies expected to be amongst the area's elite this winter and through 13 games, they haven't disappointed. Shadyside enters the week with an 11-2 record and are currently second in the OVAC standings. The Tigers do it on the offensive end and more specifically do it with the three-point shot.
Shadyside's Billy Merryman, Justin Andes and B.A. Holloway are listed amongst the Ohio Valley's top 10 in three-point goals made. And to take it a step further, those same three players are all averaging double figures, but none more than 13.7 points a game.
Tigers' head coach Ed Andes preaches balanced and playing like a team and needless to say, that's exactly the way the Orange does it.
Let's pose this question. Based on the OVAC standings, a Shadyside vs. Fort Frye championship game in Class 2-A isn't inconceivable, so just how many three-point shots would those teams get up combined? It could be the ultimate bombs away.
GET WELL WISHES
We in The Times Leader Sports Department would like extend get well wishes to Buckeye Local head boys coach Joel Nau who missed both Panther games over the weekend due to an undisclosed illness. We hope all is well with Coach Nau. He's one of the good guys in the profession, and no matter his record at Buckeye Local, the guy can flat out coach. He knows what he's doing. He was successful at Wheeling Central where played for the late Skip Prosser and he served under Gene Ammirante at Bellaire. He comes from a good pedigree and hopefully the folks at Buckeye Local realize they have a fine coach. Again, hopefully it's nothing too serious and Coach Nau is back on the bench this week.
ATMOSPHERE AND GAME
Sometimes in Ohio Valley basketball there are some great atmospheres, but the games never seem to rival that or the build up coming into the contest.
However, from our understanding, the boys game between Union Local and St. Clairsville lived up to all expectations. The Jets and Red Devils -- who are becoming more and more of bitter rivals -- hooked up in a classic, which St. C. won late on an Anthony Vincent trey.
Having Vincent hit a shot of that style shouldn't really surprise anyone. The kid has been a winner all year. Remember, he was the quarterback for the Red Devils' football team that went deep in the playoffs. He made winning plays for that outfit as well and after a slow start to the hoop season he's really turned it on and is scoring 12 points a game for the balanced Devils.
Back to the atmosphere, whenever you can jam people wall-to-wall into a venue and have the students involved it just creates such an ambiance. Again, I probably sound like a broken record, but that's what high school sports are all about.
Having said all of that, lets give some credit to Union Local in this scenario. The Jets could have easily mailed it in and got blown out. Remember, just six days prior to the latest meeting between the two, the Red Devils hammered the Jets on their floor. Joby Barr returned to the lineup in the second go-around and it made a difference. He scored 17 points, but his presence allows Ben Porter to do so much more with his team.
BIG WEEK FOR GIRLS
On Friday of this week, the OVAC Basketball Tournament committee will meet and set the brackets for the inaugural girls' tournament, which tips off a week from today with the semifinal round on the higher seeds home court.
So the next four days will help mold the brackets even further. Teams will scramble to get games in and hopefully for their sake win those games. If you glance at the OVAC standings in today's paper, you'll find there are some races for the third, fourth and fifth spots, which are wide open, so there could be some changes before Friday rolls around.
This tournament format makes this games even more important because of seeds. We understand that the games were important a year ago when the point system was in place, but when teams know whether or not they've locked up a seed is exactly what the OVAC Tournament was expected to do. And that's generate excitement for the entire season.
It's also a wide open girls basketball season, meaning not one person can predict from night-to-night who's going to win any of these games.
BOYS DRAWINGS
Last week, we spoke about the girls' sectional drawings, well this week boys get their final opportunities for style points as they take to the floor for another full week of action before deciding who will play when and against whom in the sectional tournament.
The Division II tournament with Harrison Central and Buckeye Local is once again held at St. John Arena in Steubenville and it features 11 teams with two surviving to the district, which is also set for the arena. Dover and Edison have the two top records at 11-2 and 10-3, respectively.
Local Division III teams actually got split up a bit this season. Martins Ferry and Bellaire were sent to the sectional at Claymont High School along with the likes of Garaway, Indian Valley, Tusky Valley, etc. While St. Clairsville, Union Local, Barnesville, Monroe and Buckeye Trail will all compete at the usual Meadowbrook venue. St. Clairsville and Fort Frye both own 11-2 marks at Meadowbrook, while Garaway and Ferry are pacing the Claymont sectional at 13-2 and 9-4, respectively.
In Division IV, Ohio University Eastern is once again the destination for locals. Shadyside is pacing the section with a solid 11-2 mark. Rosecrans, Frontier and Bridgeport all have seven wins as well.
The drawings are slated for Sunday at 2 p.m. and once again next week, we'll bring you complete sectional pairings.
WEEK AHEAD
Another big week of prep basketball is on the horizon. One of the biggest girls' games on tonight's card pits Edison at Martins Ferry. A win would all but clinch the Lady Riders' first Buckeye 8 basketball title and also the first title in any sport for the Purple Riders in the almost two-year old conglomeration.
Tuesday's card features a quartet of intriguing boys games. Linsly treks to Shadyside, while Weir is at Wheeling Park. Both of those games could be previews of the OVAC semifinals. John Marshall visits Wheeling Central, which is coming off a win over Weir and Linsly last week.
A big boys game is on tap Wednesday at the Linsly Fieldhouse when the Cadets welcome Martins Ferry. These two hooked up a couple of weekends ago in an overtime classic. A big girls' game on the card is in the ECOL where two-time defending state champion River View hosts Cambridge.
Thursday's premier girls' game is also at Linsly. The Cadets of first-year coach Erica Hall tangle with red-hot St. John Central, which is setting the pace in the OVAC Class 1-A race.
On Friday a trio of boys games jump out. Wheeling Park and Bellaire will meet for the second time in six days, but this time it's on Guernsey Street. Martins Ferry hosts Steubenville, while Chillicothe and its Division I signee Anthony Hitchens comes to Muskingum County to meet Zanesville, which has a Division I signee of its own in Logan Aronhalt.
Saturday's hoops features a pair of intriguing boys games. Shadyside hosts Rosecrans in a 2 p.m. reserve start and St. Clairsville hosts John Marshall that evening.
SCHEDULE CHANGES
It's times like these that explain why athletic directors are paid the big bucks. By the way, there's a hint of sarcasim in that because in our opinion, the athletic director is one of the most important yet over-looked jobs in a school.
Anyhow, the entire winter sports season has gone pretty smoothly in terms of snow (hope I just didn't jinx it), meaning there hasn't been that many reschedule dates needed. With the OVAC Hoop Tournament cut-offs nearing for both boys and girls the scramble to get as many games in as possible has made it even more important that the weather has cooperated.
St. Clairsville has been behind the eight-ball with its boys basketball schedule since day one. Basically each weekend since mid-December the Red Devil boys have played both Friday and Saturday nights since they had to move several games due to the extended football season.
Well, a few more changes have come across Kelly Rine's desk this week. The boys' basketball game at Martins Ferry, which was postponed last Tuesday due to inclement weather has been reset for Jan. 30 at the Purple Palace.
On the girls' side, the Lady Red Devils were scheduled to host Bellaire Saturday afternoon. That's been moved to Wednesday against Bellaire. It was earler moved to Bellaire for the second time this season, but the conflict was cancelled.
FREE-THROW SHOOTING
It's an old basketball cliche that says games are won and lost at the foul line. Well, the Barnesville Lady Shamrocks aren't losing many games at the line. Senior sharp-shooter Chelsey Keylor plays a big role in that. She's the valley's leading foul shooter, missing only one for the entire season. She's sank 56-of-57 from the foul line for the season. During Monday's win over Shenandoah, she was an amazing 13-of-13 from the line.
According to the OHSAA record book, the highest percentage for a season is 90.2, but the minimum number of attempts to qualify is 80.
Hopefully, we'll see a lot of you at a local gym this week as basketball season makes its turn for home.
Staskey can be reached at sstaskey@timesleaderonline.com