Traditional powers to pace Central Ohio high school girls basketball
Even with a reconfigured roster, the annual conversation in central Ohio girls basketball wouldn’t be complete without Reynoldsburg.
The Raiders featured two of the state’s top players last winter in 2022 graduates Imarianah Russell, a West Virginia freshman who was runner-up for Ms. Basketball, and Mya Perry, who is at Ohio State, and produced the program’s first Division I state championship while going 26-2.
That was the culmination, though, of several years of long tournament runs that came up short of a title.
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Reynoldsburg, which lost in state semifinals in 2010, 2012 and 2016, has been one of the safest area bets in the sport throughout most of coach Jack Purtell’s 21 seasons.
The Central District began having four champions in the big-school division in 2014, and during the nine seasons since, the Raiders won seven district titles.
Reynoldsburg finds itself in a slightly different spot heading into this season after losing three other key contributors to graduation along with Russell and Perry.
“It’s kind of fun right now, with everybody trying to figure out what new roles they’re going to fill,” Purtell said. “All of our kids accepted their roles last year, and the outcome was what we hoped. We lost an awful lot to graduation, but these kids are still hungry.”
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Reynoldsburg isn’t the only team that has found ways to stay near the top despite regular roster turnover.
That theme will be key this season considering some of the teams expected to be among the area’s elite will be fueled by newcomers.
Over the last nine postseasons, Pickerington Central and Newark also have won seven district championships, Dublin Coffman and Gahanna Lincoln both have captured four and Westerville South and Upper Arlington both have won two.
That group, along with Reynoldsburg, likely will lead the way again.
The Raiders enter the season with less experience than in recent years, but they have a talented pair of players around which to build in senior forward Sam Savoy and junior wing player Daniya McDonald. Savoy is the only returning starter, and McDonald played for the Raiders as a freshman and has transferred back after averaging 20.5 points for Whitehall last season.
Coffman has settled for regional runner-up finishes the past two seasons and lost seven players to graduation after going 25-2 last winter, but plenty of talent remains.
Senior Tessa Grady, a 6-foot-2 wing player who has signed with Wisconsin, will lead the Shamrocks, but the team’s other top returnee, senior guard Jenna Kopyar, could be ready for a breakout season. She was averaging 19 points last year before suffering a season-ending injury in late December.
In addition, Coffman has had four players transfer in, including senior guard Keiryn McGuff, who helped Watterson to a district runner-up finish in 2021 and played at a prep school in Tennessee last season. She is the daughter of Ohio State women's coach Kevin McGuff.
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The other transfers are junior Gwen Jenkins, who was honorable mention all-district for Hilliard Davidson last season, and junior twins Avery and Peyton Mather, who were key players for Cincinnati Sycamore.
“We graduated seven seniors,” coach Adam Banks said. “We got four transfers in, and we have some juniors that were on (junior varsity) last year that are going to be new faces for everybody, but they’re going to be heavy in the mix.”
The other teams that won district titles last season were Pickerington Central and Gahanna, and they’re joined by Westerville South as expected contenders. All three have experienced returning casts and a potential impact freshman.
Central is led by senior guard Madison Greene, a Vanderbilt signee, and also returns 6-1 senior Olivia Cooper, who has committed to Columbia, and 6-1 junior Berry Wallace.
Joining that group is Wallace’s freshman sister, forward Blossom Wallace.
“We’ve had a lot of good players in my 21 years, but so has Coffman, and Pickerington Central is going to be maybe the class of central Ohio,” Purtell said.
Westerville South lost to Coffman 47-42 in a district final and returns a pair of college signees in Nelia Guice (Ohio Dominican) and Leila Jones (Akron). The Wildcats have added Ariyana Cradle, who is among the top freshman guards in Ohio, according to prepgirlshoops.com.
Gahanna features senior guards Laila Marshall and Clarke Jackson and junior guard Aaliyah Younger after bouncing back from a second-round district tournament loss in 2021 to win a district title last season.
The Lions also have a freshman who should fill a key role in guard Haedyn Hull.
“With the pace that (Jackson and Marshall) play on both sides of the basketball, they can be a threat,” Gahanna coach Ron Bailey said. “We lost six seniors, but we really didn’t have (2022 graduate and Xavier freshman) Bella (Ward) most of last year, so we’ve got most of our other players back.”
@UlreyThisWeek
This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Central Ohio girls basketball high school season preview
