LaMonta’ Stone gets extra credit for his basketball prowess - with points taken off for forgetfulness.
The Bowling Green High School junior point guard forgot his uniform when the Bobcats played at Sylvania Northview in a Northern Lakes League game on Friday.
The only way he could get on the floor was to wear the extra “blood” uniform the team manager brings along, the one used when someone gets blood on his uniform and has to change into a clean one to go back in the game.
The “blood” uniform was way too big for the 5-foot-6 Stone, so the jersey was very loose and he had to fold the waistband on the pants to make it tight enough.
He might not have looked like a star, but he sure played like one.
Stone, the son of the BGSU men’s assistant coach of the same name, played all 44 minutes and scored 38 points as the Bobcats won 73-71 in triple overtime.
He had 14 field goals, including three 3-pointers, and seven free throws.
As might be expected, his teammates have encouraged him to stick with that roomier uniform for the rest of the season.
SLOW STARTERS: Archbold’s boys scored just 13 points in the first half but rallied from that 16-point deficit to beat Defiance Tinora 52-44; Tinora’s boys had a 17-6 lead on Haviland Wayne Trace after one quarter and 37-27 halftime advantage but lost in overtime 67-64; and West Unity Hilltop’s boys trailed Pioneer North Central 35-16 at half but thanks to a 39-18 upper hand in the second half won 55-53.
BLACKBOARD MATERIAL: Montpelier’s boys were outscored 57-10 combined in the first quarter in dropping three games last week, 76-41 to Patrick Henry, 59-40 to Metamora Evergreen and 76-47 to Antwerp; Nikki Meyer scored 37 points but her Liberty Center team still came up short against Hamler Patrick Henry, 87-69; Kalida’s girls forced Miller City into 38 turnovers in a 69-34 victory; Findlay Liberty-Benton lost its top returning scorer when Katie Simon (17.5 ppg) suffered a preseason knee injury and then lost its season opener to Bellevue, but has won its last 15 behind BGSU-bound Rachel Myers; Zanesville Maysville’s girls (19-0) ran their regular-season winning streak to 40 games with a 49-34 win against Dresden Tri-Valley - the Panthers’ only loss in that span is a district final setback to fellow unbeaten Millersburg West Holmes; Versailles, the Division III state boys runnerup last season and out to a 9-0 start to this season, have dropped seven straight after losing junior Division I prospect Kyle Ahrens to fractures in both his fibula and tibia in one leg; Fort Recovery’s boys ran their win streak to nine in a row and took sole possession of first place in the Midwest Athletic Conference with a 66-48 win over Minster; and in girls hoops, New Knoxville picked up its 11th straight win with a 60-29 win over Waynesfield-Goshen, and Minster won its ninth in a row with a 52-36 win over Russia (no, not the one hosting the Winter Olympics).
DOUBLE TRIPLE-DOUBLE: Upper Sandusky’s Taylor Graboski, a 6-2 senior headed to Valparaiso on a volleyball scholarship, turned in a triple-double with 18 points, 18 rebounds and 10 blocked shots in a 65-61 win over Bucyrus. She then followed that up with another triple-double (14 points, 11 rebounds, 12 blocks) in the Rams’ 56-46 win over New Washington Buckeye Central.
FLASHY NUMBERS: Fostoria St. Wendelin’s Kamryn Troike broke her own single-game school record of 31 by scoring 33 points in the Mohawks’ 53-21 win over Fremont St. Joseph - also grabbing 14 rebounds for her seventh straight double-double; and Malik Bocook had 21 points, 13 rebounds and two blocked shots in unbeaten Zanesville’s 63-45 win against rival Cambridge Friday, then had 19 points and 13 rebounds in the Blue Devils’ 71-43 win at Lancaster a day later.
CARDIAC KIDS: Pandora-Gilboa’s Seth Schmenk capped a 32-point night by throwing in a half-court shot at the second-overtime buzzer to give his Rockets a 63-61 win over Vanlue; and in a battle of unbeatens, Division III Andover Pymatuning Valley (16-0) rallied for a 55-54 victory against Division II Cortland Lakeview (17-1).
TOP-FIVE THRILLER: In its first season in the Northern Ohio League, fifth-ranked Mansfield Ontario ended Division II No. 1 Norwalk’s 57-game regular-season winning streak with a 63-61 win. Both teams entered the game 15-0. The Truckers had a potential game-tying basket rim out with 1.9 seconds left, sealing the defeat. The 57 straight regular-season wins goes down as the ninth-longest in Ohio history according to the unofficial OHSAA state record book. The streak began on Feb. 26, 2011 and included parts of four seasons.
HALF A THOUSAND: Berlin Hiland girls coach Dave Schlabach won his 500th game last week in a 93-7 win over Newcomerstown. Now in his 23rd season, Schlabach is 501-80 at the Holmes County school. Under Schlabach, the Hawks have four Division IV state championships, four state runner-ups and three other trips to the state’s final four. Hiland will win the Inter-Valley Conference title for the 19th consecutive season and 21st time in Schlabach’s tenure.
AND FINALLY: On Friday night, the Jackson Ironladies won only their third Southeastern Ohio Athletic League girls basketball championship in school history with a 73-45 win over Vincent Warren, with whom they shared the title last season.
It was only their second outright championship (the other was in 2000-01) and first back-to-back league titles.
Leading that 2000-01 team was Beth Howe, the school’s leading girls scorer with 2,173 points. She went on to play at Ohio State and works for the university. The current Jackson squad is led by Madison Ridout, third in career scoring with over 1,200 points. She’s singed to play at Kent State.
Jackson is a charter member of the SEOAL, founded in 1925, and the league title marks only the sixth in school history for both boys and girls (three apiece).
Jackson girls coach Matt Walburn has five of those six titles in his family.
Walburn was a sophomore on the Ironmen’s 1990-91 boys co-championship team. His father, Steve Walburn, was a player on Jackson’s only other two league title teams - in 1961-62 and 1962-63.
___
Rusty Miller can be reached at https://twitter.com/RustyMillerAP
Please read our comment policy before commenting.