By Ed Letsinger/Hacksports.com
Special to MaxPreps.com
Two of the top basketball players in Ohio took to the floor on Saturday night at Ohio State University, when Cincinnati Withrow played Canal Winchester at Value City Arena at the Jerome Schottenstein Center.
Neither player disappointed. Both produced big performances.
Withrow's 6-foot-8 senior forward Yancy Gates, a University of Cincinnati recruit and a consensus top 50 player nationally by most recruiting experts, scored 25 points and grabbed 12 rebounds. Winchester's 7-0 center, B.J. Mullens, headed to OSU next year, gave Buckeye fans a promising glimpse of the future by scoring 16 points and pulling down 19 rebounds.
Winthrow (10-2), ranked No. 17 in the state by MaxPreps.com, rallied from a 47-40 deficit in the fourth quarter to defeat Winchester, 58-57, in the final seconds. The game garnered national attention and was broadcast live on ESPNU.
Two Big Tournaments On Tap This Weekend
A "Who's Who" of Ohio girls' basketball will participate in the fifth-annual Classic in the Country at Hiland High School over the three-day Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday this coming weekend (Jan. 19-21).
A total of 29 teams will compete in 20 games that feature over 70 Division I college prospects, according to event organizers.
Fourteen of the competing teams are ranked in the MaxPreps.com top 25 poll. Some of the headliners include No. 1-ranked West Chester Lakota West and University of Tennessee recruit Amber Gray; No. 2 Cincinnati Mount Notre Dame, led by Tia McBride (Georgetown) and Channing Hillman (UTEP); No. 3 Canton Hoover and Kyle Baumgartner (Akron) and Brittany Orban (Northwestern); and No. 5 Toledo Central Catholic, with Sharise Calhoun (Oakland) and Paige Weaver (Concordia).
From the hardwood to the water, the annual Southwest Ohio High School Swimming and Diving Classic will be held at several different sites throughout Cincinnati. This marks the 25th anniversary of the event.
Diving preliminaries will be held at Milford High, Trotwood-Madison High, Mason Community Center and Miami University on Saturday, with the finals scheduled for Sunday at Sycamore High.
Swimming preliminaries are also scheduled at Milford, Mason, Trotwood-Madison and Miami, and also at Beavercreek and Countryside YMCAs on Saturday and Sunday. The finals will be held at St. Xavier High at Keating Natatorium at 7 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday.
Meet organizers claim the Swimming and Diving Classic is the largest invitational in the country. This year over 100 schools and 2,800 swimmers and divers are expected to compete.
The meet is also widely considered by coaches to be a prime-time tune-up for the upcoming state meet in February because of its two-day format and top-flight field.
Nine-time defending state champion St. Xavier will be competing for an astounding 25th consecutive Classic title.
We'll follow up with news and results from both the Classic in the Country and the Southwest Ohio High School Swimming and Diving Classic in next week's column.
Small School, Big Season
Last season, Seven Hills finished the year 12-9 after getting upset in the first round of the Division IV sectional tournament. What a difference a year makes. The Stingers are now the hottest team in any division in Cincinnati, riding a 10-game winning streak after beating rival Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, 72-68, in overtime on Friday night.
Seven Hills has not lost a game since its season opener against North College Hill on Nov. 27. With the toughest part of its schedule out of the way, it could conceivably run the table.
"We're just playing very consistent basketball right now," said coach Willie Hill, now in his fourth year at the school. "We're a very unselfish team and everyone knows their roles. We're getting 70 percent of our scoring off of assists and we're just doing all the little things you need to do to win."
Milestones & Records
It took 28 years, but Elder High finally has a new career rebounding leader. Senior Kyle Rudolph, a University of Notre Dame football recruit who also excels on the basketball court, passed Dan Federman's total of 567 on Friday night against Dayton Carroll. Federman, who went on to play at the University of Tennessee, had held the rebounding record since 1980.
Lakota West senior Jesse Stevens joined an elite group of Firebird wrestlers over the weekend at the Lakota west Duals by becoming just the ninth wrestler in school history to reach 100 wins for his career. The two-time state qualifier now has a career record of 101-32.
Ohio small-school power North College Hill lost its first Miami Valley Conference game in five years last Tuesday night when the three-time Division III defending state champions lost to Seven Hills 75-66.
Ed Letsinger is the editor of Hacksports.com
