Despite recording their first losing season in 12 years, no player on the Garfield G-Men girls’ basketball team has abandoned ship. The G-Men ended a seven-game losing streak when they defeated Bristol 42-32 last Thursday evening in Trumbull County.
“You could just feel the energy from them,” said Coach Aaron Gilbert. “It was a different feeling throughout the game where they were tense, but they still had a little bit of confidence that they had not had in a long time. Then in the locker room, once the game was over, you could feel the air was lighter and you could feel their shoulders not as hunched and you could just feel it.”
As challenging as it was enduring a seven-game skid, things got tougher for Garfield (4-18, 3-11) when they lost sophomore guard/forward Mandy Cardinal for the rest of the season to a torn ACL.
“You lose your best player and lose one of the top players in the conference which definitely hurts and then from a morale standpoint, this group is pretty tight, so to see their friend not being able to play with them and stuff, that definitely affected them,” acknowledged the 17th-year coach.
Gilbert said the 6-foot Cardinal is expected to be ready by the start of next season but in the meantime, a young G-Men squad had to learn how to survive without its best player.
In order to fill some of Cardinal’s minutes, Garfield called up freshman guard Charlee Hill to plug in some of the holes in the rotation. It took a few games but for the first time in a while this season, Garfield finally showed some life with an inspired performance against the Panthers last Thursday.
According to Gilbert, the G-Men played with a renewed energy in the first period and outscored Bristol by a 13-4 margin.
“We could not have asked for a better start in the first quarter,” he added. “For the girls, they came out, they were focused and had some energy and it is really the most energy we have seen out of them. This is a game that we are going to need everybody and need that extra boost from the people that are not even playing.”
In addition to a fast start offensively, Garfield’s defense allowed Bristol to only make one field goal, scoring their other two points from the free throw line. Sophomore guard Riley Grace sparked the G-Men by scoring six points in the opening period.
Garfield carried their momentum into the second period by increasing their lead to 15-4 but the Panthers responded by making a run to cut the lead to only four points near the end of the quarter.
Gilbert noted that whenever a team made a run on the G-Men, they could not counter and would relinquish the momentum. This time, after the lead was trimmed to four points, the G-Men pushed their lead back to six points before the end of the half. The 5-foot-5 Grace kept the G-Men in front by adding 10 more points in the second period to preserve Garfield’s advantage.
In the third quarter, Garfield’s offense stalled and only scored four points. Despite suffering from a lackluster period, the G-Men did not let Bristol seize control and limited it to only four points, maintaining a 28-22 lead entering the fourth period.
While it was not great to see Garfield plagued by another poor offensive quarter, Gilbert was pleased his team did not allow their offensive struggles to carry over to the defensive side of the ball.
“The good thing with that is that we have had a bad quarter all year,” he noted. “Every single game we have had a bad quarter and that’s really where teams have put distance between us and them. For the first time, we were able to again rebound and limit them to one shot so they did not get those extra opportunities, so our bad quarter ended up being their bad quarter.”
The G-Men increased their lead to double digits in the fourth period and although Bristol made one more run, Garfield fended off their efforts to score a victory in their regular season finale. According to Gilbert, the victory helped re-instill some confidence in his players.
“Although it has not been the year we have anticipated by any stretch of the imagination,” he said. We have had some injuries throughout the year but they have come to work every single day. They have not skipped out on things and have worked hard when we have asked them to.”
The G-Men will begin postseason play when they face the winner of the Beachwood/Waynedale game in the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division III Northeast 2 sectional final either at home or at Apple Creek on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m.
