The Streetsboro girls basketball team, including Ava Bodovetz (22), Naomi Benson (21) and Ryan Roscoe (4) celebrate after the team’s Division IV regional semifinal victory over Canfield on Wednesday.
Natalie Queen/Special to Portage Sports

By Jim Smith

Correspondent

The Streetsboro Rockets girls basketball team thrust themselves into a Division IV regional championship matchup against the Shaker Heights Laurel Gators by defeating the Canfield Cardinals, 51-45, at the Canton Memorial Fieldhouse on Wednesday.

The same two teams squared off in the regional title in 2024.

In the semifinal game that Streetsboro head coach Carl Singer described as a “crazy,” the Rockets led after each quarter of play, despite several mistakes on the hardwood.

“I’m going to go with ‘crazy’,” Singer responded, when asked to describe the game in a single word. “Mostly because I was going kind of crazy over there, some of the things we were doing that we don’t normally due, especially on the offensive side.

“We made too many mistakes and we’re able to pull one out today,” Singer added.

After earning a five-point lead in the opening quarter, Streetsboro allowed the Cardinals to overcome the deficit, first by allowing Marina Koenig to connect on a three-point effort and then creating a free-throw opportunity and allowing a pair of Canfield baskets, giving an 11-10 lead to the Cardinals.

With standout forward Naomi Benson managing early foul troubles, teammate Olivia Johnson-Wilson ended the first quarter with a quick five points and opened the second quarter with a basket to again build the Rockets’ lead to five.

“As a point guard, I had to control the game, slow down and just take my shots,” Johnson-Wilson said when discussing her play during the contest in which she netted 11 points.

“Naomi said it last week,” Singer explained. “We are not a one-person team. We have a lot of good players. We have a lot of juniors and seniors, which is huge in these situations, the experience to step up and make plays when we need them.”

In a similar script to the first quarter, Streetsboro built a nine-point lead in the second stanza but, again, allowed Canfield to battle back to within a point before the opening half ended with the Rockets leading 26-22.

Canfield’s Carly Fleming opened the third quarter netting five points via a three-point effort and another quick basket after creating a Streetsboro turnover giving the Cardinals a 27-26 margin.

Singer responded by using an early timeout and his team answered the challenge by closing out the quarter outscoring Canfield by an 9-4 margin earning a 35-31 lead heading into the final quarter.

In the final quarter, Benson’s scoring and rebounding efforts, along with a solid effort by Raegan Hendon, with five of her eight points on the night scored in the fourth quarter, resulted in the Rockets advancing to the rematch with Laurel.

“I realized that if I can’t score, I can do something else,” Benson said while discussing her performance. “We needed rebounds, so I started picking up there.”

“One of the messages we have been sending lately, is we have to find a way to win. Whatever that means in terms of defense, offense, rebounds, just making the right plays mentally, we just have to find a way no matter what happens,” Singer said.

On the night, Benson and Sydney Abbuhl joined Johnson-Wilson in tallying 11 points each.

Singer identified value of earning a second consecutive opportunity to win a regional crown offering, “When you’re a team that has never been there before you’re hoping to get there and you’re hoping to win. We feel like this year it has been an expectation for us. We expect to get there and we expect to give ourselves an opportunity to win. We are not hoping for it now; we think we’ve earned it.”