Stow girls basketball has had to recalibrate over the last month

After junior point guard Anna Hurst went down with an ACL tear, the Bulldogs have had to make changes to their offensive game plan

Photo by Jeff Harwell 

WADSWORTH, Ohio – When Stow defeated Wadsworth 43-42 on Saturday night to clinch at least a share of their seventh straight Suburban League National Division title, it was the culmination of a month-long cycle of changes for the Bulldogs.

In Stow’s win over this same Wadsworth team on January 4th, the Bulldogs suffered a loss despite the victory as junior point guard Anna Hurst was lost with a torn ACL.

In the month since her injury, the Bulldogs have been trying to rearrange how they do things on offense.

“When you lose a point guard and a player like Anna Hurst, it takes a while for us to recalibrate and start to understand everybody’s different roles,” Stow head coach Bob Podges said. “And sometimes (those are) painful lessons.”

The lessons were dealt to Stow in the form of four straight losses to Archbishop Alter (56-35), Huber Heights Wayne (35-28), Hudson (50-39) and Canton McKinley (55-39).

But it was in that McKinley game where Podges felt like things started to click for the Bulldogs.

“We have been playing around with some (things) and in the second half against McKinley we ran it, and it looked pretty good,” Podges said. “McKinley ended up beating us by (16) but we had it down to a four-point game with four minutes left.”

What exactly has Stow had to do offensively without Hurst? Remain patient.

“It’s a more patient offense because we don’t have anybody who can consistently put the ball on the floor and get to the basket,” Podges said. “We need to work with each other and it took us a while to figure that out.”

After figuring it out, the Bulldogs have now won three in a row with conference wins over Wadsworth and North Royalton and a non-conference victory over Magnificat.

The Bulldogs will also now have to rely on more players to handle the ball and to score with Hurst watching from the bench.

“It’s definitely been a lot, we all had to take different roles,” said senior Katey Croyle, who had eight points, five rebounds and four assists in the win over Wadsworth on Saturday. “We all had to score a lot more without her. It has been a lot more shooting from Alaina (Ray), Rachel (Frailey) has been driving a lot more and obviously Kennady (Dodds) and Kadence (Dodds) have contributed a lot to that too.”

In Saturday’s win over Wadsworth, the Dodds sisters did more than contribute – they combined to score all 20 points for the Bulldogs in the second half. Sophomore Kadence had seven of her 11 points in the second half, while freshman Kennady had 13 of her game-high 19 point after halftime, including the last seven points of the third quarter to give Stow a 10-point advantage after three.

Kennady finished with a double-double as she also secured 10 rebounds in the game.

“I think (Kennady) is maturing really, really fast,” Podges said. “She is starting to understand her role on offense, she is taking better shots.”

While the offense was being tinkered with, the calling card for Stow has always been defense, and they are allowing just 33.9 points per game this season. The Bulldogs play a mostly pack line defense and have only made one slight change on that side of the ball with Hurst out.

“The only thing that is different is that typically in a pack line defense, you put an extreme amount of pressure on the ball and we’re not doing that,” Podges said. “We’re telling players to pick their person up at the 3-point line. Even if your person has the ball, don’t go above the 3-point line. Normally we pick up their guard at halfcourt but we’re not doing that right now.”

Stow (15-5, 10-1) has a pair of games left in the regular season to work on things before heading into tournament play. And Podges knows what the plan has to be for the Bulldogs to make any type of run in the postseason.

“For us to be successful, it has to be defensively and be patient on offense right now,” Podges said.

Photo Gallery (photos by Jeff Harwell)