Medina knocks Strongsville from list of unbeatens in Ohio girls high school basketball
MEDINA, Ohio - For the Medina girls basketball team, practice this past Sunday was optional. What was mandatory was showing up and playing hard on Wednesday night after an 11-day layoff between games.
The Bees did just that, defeating previously undefeated Strongsville 58-50 in a battle between the two of the top teams in the Greater Cleveland Conference.
Leading by just two at the half, Medina (11-3, 5-1) came out of the locker room and went on a 9-2 run leading to a Strongsville timeout, led by senior Izzy Kurka, who scored all nine points after being held scoreless in the first half.
"I struggled in the first half, but I picked it up and my teammates helped me through it," Kurka said. "I felt like I rushed all my shots in the first half, so I got a few rebounds and my teammates picked me up and they fed off the energy that I was bringing."
The next part of the third quarter belonged to junior Olivia Klanac, who got an and-1 and hit the free throw. Then after Strongsville scored, Klanac took a pass from Addy Shook and fired a 3-pointer from the right corner, splashing it down to not only give the Bees their largest lead of the game at 38-26, but to score her 1,000th career point, only the fifth player in program history to reach that mark.
"I've been praying for this moment, and I'm just so thankful that I got to get 1,000 on my home court," Klanac said. "I just want to give all the glory to God. I would not be where I am without him, without my teammates and without all the challenges he has helped me overcome. I'm just so thankful."
Medina led by 12 midway through the fourth quarter, but Strongsville freshman Sidney Butera knocked down a pair of 3-pointers sandwiched around a 3-pointer from junior Sydney Bass.
But the duo of Kurka and Klanac had an answer each time, even if they were giving up three points for two. And then when Strongsville (12-1, 5-1) cut the lead to just five on back-to-back baskets by Eszter Dioszegi, Kurka and Addy Shook each hit a pair of free throws to ice the game.
"At the end when we had a lead, I was like that's not enough against this team," Medina head coach Karen Kase said. "They're gonna hit threes. Butera is gonna do what she does. So we had to stick together and we need to get a little bit better at the end of games, but different people stepped up."
Klanac led all scorers with 21 points, while Kurka had 15 for the Bees and Molly Gilbert scored seven. Addy Shook (six points), Hailey Johnson (five) and Abby Dress (four) rounded out the scoring for Medina.
Butera led the Mustangs with 14 points despite being saddled with foul trouble and Bass scored 13.
The last time Medina took the floor was in Florida at the end of December, playing three games in three days, winning two of them.
For some teams, the long break this season has been a hinderance to playing well in the first game back out on the court. But not for Medina. After all, they had their hiccup already with a 54-51 conference loss to Brunswick at the end of November.
"Our practices are not easy, so we made sure that we worked them and made it difficult," Kase said. "We had our flat moment against Brunswick earlier in the season, so that was sort of like let's not do that again. A warning almost."
One of those practices came this past Sunday, when players were not required to show up. But the entire roster was in the gym and ready to go, which carried into the practices over the next two days.
"We put in work on a Sunday, it was an optional practice, but we had everybody show up and we went to work," Kurka said. "We got a bunch of shots up and then Monday, Tuesday, we were locked in."
Their coach also noticed how focused the players seemed to be.
"They listened, they prepared, we watched a lot of film and our whole team went to go scout Brunswick and Strongsville, so they were locked in," Kase said. "I'm very happy with that aspect of it. You can be locked in and then not perform."
The win for the Bees puts them in a tie for the conference lead with Strongsville and Brunswick, with a rematch against Brunswick on Saturday and a game looming at Strongsville in the final game of the regular season on Feb. 10. As far as wins in the middle of the season, this was as important as they come for Medina.
"It's always good to beat a team that was undefeated, especially it being Strongsville in our conference and them being at the top of the GCC, and we are tied with them right now," Kurka said.
The victory on Wednesday doesn't keep the Medina players from focusing on the task at hand, however.
"(This win) is very important, it is bumping up our chance at first place in the conference," Klanac said. "We still have a lot of work to do though, so we're just gonna take it one game, one day, one practice at a time and just keep on going.
"Everybody has been putting in so much extra work. That's exactly what we need to be good. That's exactly what a team needs is to love what they do and love who they do it with."
Some of that love the Medina players share for one another is a byproduct of that Florida trip just a couple of weeks ago.
"I felt like that trip brought us together as a team, Kurka said. "We learned things we never knew about each other. And I feel like it was a great time for the trip and we are as close as we can ever get with this team."
-- Ryan Isley | ryan@scorebooklive.com | @sbliveoh
