It’s been only three games, but the Streetsboro Rockets girls’ basketball team is off to another fast start. The Rockets remained undefeated when they overwhelmed Metro Athletic Conference foe Cloverleaf 65-30 last Friday evening at Streetsboro.
“Cloverleaf had some good returning players from last year so we knew they had a couple of kids that could score, and they definitely got better,” said Coach Carl Singer. “They gave us a little bit of a run for the first half last night, but we came out in the second half pretty fired up to play the best that we could play and I thought we did a nice job.”
After losing three of the first four games against the Colts since joining the MAC in the 2020-21 season, Streetsboro (3-0, 2-0) has dominated their conference rivals, winning the last three games.
On Friday night, the Rocket girls enjoyed another fast start, outscoring Cloverleaf by a 19-8 margin in the first quarter thanks to a suffocating man-to-man defense and were sparked by sophomore point guard Olivia Johnson-Wilson, who scored nine points.
“Olivia has been attacking the basket for the last two games really well and has been really aggressive at forcing the defense to try and make plays,” said Streetsboro’s nine-year coach. “She does a nice job of finishing around the basket and making good decisions if the defense does come over and help out on her.”
In the second quarter, after a few more minutes of playing man defense, the Rocket girls switched to a zone defense, but still stifled the Colts, holding them to only eight points and raced out to a 36-16 advantage at the half.
According to Singer, Streetsboro’s size and athleticism gives it an advantage when playing man defense but they are just as good when playing zone.
“I feel like it is a nice change-up for us because we do have some good size and sometimes when you put that size in a zone it makes it difficult for the other teams to move the ball around and we have a pretty good amount of success at it too and are just constantly working to get better at it,” he said.
Junior post player Naomi Benson ignited the Rockets in the second and third quarters, tallying 16 points and Streetsboro assumed total control in the third period, outscoring Cloverleaf by a 23-8 margin to go ahead 59-24, triggering the running clock.
Singer said the 6-foot-3 junior helped Streetsboro maintain its edge throughout the game, leading all scorers with 18 points.
“We challenged her to come into the second half with a little more intensity and a little more of an attitude and Naomi exemplified that,” he added. “She came and scored our first couple of buckets and was crashing the boards really hard and she just got us going there in the third quarter and I think we fed off of that.”
Cloverleaf could do very little against the Rockets’ defense, recording single digit points in all four periods, continuing Streetsboro’s dominating defensive trend. In the last eight quarters, the Rocket girls have not allowed their opponents to score in double digits.
“We take a lot of pride in our defense,” noted Singer. “It is something that we are constantly pushing and obviously the offensive end tends to be a little more exciting, but our message is if we take care of business on the defensive end that is going to make the offense a lot easier.”
In addition to Streetsboro’s size advantage with a frontcourt consisting of Benson and senior forward Ella Kassan, Singer noted the Rockets have received good contributions from the guard trio of Johnson-Wilson, junior Sydney Abbuhl and sophomore Carlee Bedford who have been just as dominating.
“Olivia has been scoring this year and she is not one that we necessarily go to out there to score a lot of points for us, but it is definitely a nice bonus,” he said. “Carlee has been shooting the ball really well and doing a lot of nice things for us and Sydney has got the ability to get to the basket and shoot the ball really well and finish. Between the three of them I would not want to have to be on the other end trying to guard them.”
In Streetsboro’s first two MAC games of the season, it has outscored its opponents by a 121-47 margin. The Rocket girls have shown no ill effects of having been idle for a week after their season-opening victory against Akron Ellet on Nov. 28 when their original MAC opener against Norton on Dec. 1 was postponed.
Following a home contest against MAC foe Field on Wednesday evening, the Rockets will hit the road and face conference rival Woodridge in Peninsula on Friday evening at 7 p.m.
