Archbishop Hoban defeats Ellet in electric Akron girls basketball showdown

Hoban remains undefeated on the season with the win

AKRON, Ohio - Archbishop Hoban staved off a fast start by Ellet - and a frantic finish - to take home a 49-45 road win on Wednesday evening ina. matchup of two teams on Akron's east side.

Trailing 18-13 after the first quarter, the Knights used a 30-17 advantage in the second and third quarters to take a 43-35 lead into the final eight minutes.

It then took some holding on for Hoban, as Ellet eventually cut the lead to three with 46.4 seconds left on an up and under move and layup by Sanaiiya Gray.

But senior Mackenzie Edingburgh made a basket for Hoban to stretch the lead back out to five with 21.8 seconds remaining. Edingburgh scored a team-high 14 for the Knights, including four of the team's six points in the final quarter.

"That's what senior leadership is supposed to be about, where you take the hard shot,  you take the crucial shot, she was able to do that," Hoban head coach Pam Davis said. "(She was able) to keep it relatively far enough away where they just couldn't come down to score and go ahead."

Ellet's Caitlyn Holmes split a pair of free throws and Ellet had its chances late, but nothing dropped for the Orangemen.

Midway through the fourth quarter, Hoban went into protect mode, trying to keep the ball away from Ellet. But the Knights kept turning the ball over, giving the Orangemen chances to cut into the lead.

"We didn't take care of the ball, we didn't show any patience and we forced a lot of bad passes in the passing lanes and they picked them off," Davis said. "There were times where we I thought we did pretty well defensively, even after a turnover. But we have to have some people step up into a leadership position and show poise and a veteran mindset."

Archbishop Hoban's Mackenzie Edingburgh drives by an Ellet defender in their game in 2022. Photo credit: Mike Cook, SBLive Sports  / Mike Cook, SBLive Sports

For Ellet, head coach Nick Harris was proud of his team for once again fighting to the end as Ellet's three losses on the season have come to teams in Division I who are currently undefeated in Wadsworth, Streetsboro and Hoban.

"They're full of heart, they're full of grit, and they're an incredibly resilient group," Harris said. "That's who we have to play if we want to do what we want to do in February. There's two key points - are we better than we were yesterday and are we preparing for February? Days like today show we're better now today."

One of the measuring sticks Harris used to gauge his team's improvement was not the final score, but the reaction after the game. Hoban defeated Ellet 75-51 last season.

"The girls were disappointed (tonight), which was great to see," Harris said. "The disappointment wasn't really there because we were outmatched last year. This year the girls are starting to believe they deserve to be on these floors and they can win on these floors."

Another reason for optimism from Harris was that despite Holmes having a game-high 26 points, she didn't have her best all-around game and the Orangemen were still in the game until the final possessions.

"I hate moral victories, but we see we're capable of," Harris said. "We lost by four. And my stud, the best player in Northeast Ohio - we can argue about it - she'll tell you she didn't have her best game. So to know that she left some out there and we were still in it is really a positive thing. It's really encouraging."

The two schools are located just four miles apart and the players know each other, some having grown up together, which made for a great atmosphere for a mid-December game. 

The crowd at Ellet was electric, and might have hit its crescendo late in the first quarter as Holmes put on a show, dropping 13 points in the final 3:30 of the period, including a pair of 3-pointers that put Hoban back on its heels. 

Hoban then responded with a 10-0 run to start the second quarter to take the lead and control of the game.

"We just told them (after the first quarter) to take a deep breath," Davis said. "I thought that they were playing scared in a way that they were playing to the hype of the crowd. It's not really a rivalry. We've only played each other twice. I think they were getting into some of (Hoban's players) live in this neighborhood type of thing. And so maybe it was a battleground underlying message."

Some of those players on Hoban's team that live in the Ellet district? Ellet's head coach knows them well.

"A lot of the young ladies on Hoban, most of their starters, best players, are girls that I coached or have known since they were little girls," Harris said. "They wouldn't talk to me before the game, or look at me because they wanted to be so locked in, which I respect."

There was another reason Harris thinks the game was played with so much passion.

"There's an intense rivalry with Caitlyn," Harris said. "There's a respect, but Caitlyn's the measuring stick in the area. Every one of them wants to show that they're as good or better and deserve to be on the court with her." 

As for the crowd? It's something Harris has been bragging about all season so far, as the Ellet community has continued to show up to watch his team.

"Our community, they love these girls," Harris said. "They see these girls work, they see these girls how they are in the classroom and in the community and the support just comes naturally. They show up and they show out and they really treat them like a special group which I love because I think they deserve it."