AURORA, Ohio — It's been a while since the Aurora girls have won a conference championship in basketball -- try 83 years. In fact, in the entire existence of Aurora High School, the girls have won only three basketball championships -- in 1924, 1925 and 1927. It seems difficult to imagine, but there are banners hanging in the gym...
AURORA, Ohio — It's been a while since the Aurora girls have won a conference championship in basketball -- try 83 years.
In fact, in the entire existence of Aurora High School, the girls have won only three basketball championships -- in 1924, 1925 and 1927. It seems difficult to imagine, but there are banners hanging in the gym to prove it.
Yet here the Greenmen are at 6-0, 3-0 in the competitive Chagrin Division of the Chagrin Valley Conference, following Friday's thrilling come-from-behind 58-56 victory over previously unbeaten Perry.
"Every day when we walk out of the gym, we look up and see that 1927," said Aurora senior Heather Schroeder, who contributed to a balanced effort with 13 points. She was matched by sophomore Allison Howard with 13 points, behind another 10th-grader, Camilla Brown, who had 17 points.
It was yet another sophomore, an unlikely hero, who hit the game-winning shot -- Christina Graham. Used mostly as a defensive stopper on Perry's red-hot Elisse Sailors, who was the high scorer with 25 points, Graham found herself with the ball in her hands and the clock winding down.
"I heard, 'Shoot,' so I shot it," Graham said.
The ball swished through the net with three seconds to play, breaking the only tie since the game began, and Perry failed to inbound the ball before the clock ran out.
Aurora, ranked 25th in The Plain Dealer's Top 25, led for the game's first 4:16 and then the final three seconds.
The Greenmen trailed by 14 points in the first half as Sailors hit four 3-pointers on her way to 16 points at intermission. Sailors was held to nine points in the second half, as Graham, Allison Blackley and Anne Quaranto turned up the heat on the Perry junior.
"We decided to face-guard her the rest of the game," Aurora coach Erika Schultz said. "That was huge."
The Greenmen gradually worked their way back into the game, scoring on offensive rebounds after missed free throws.
It all came down to a midcourt inbounds play that Aurora ran with six seconds to play. The ball was supposed to be lobbed to Schroeder, who was cutting backdoor off a high screen, but the ball was tipped and was headed out of bounds. Schroeder grabbed the ball and saved it to Graham for the game-winning shot.
"We've had that play for about two years, and it's never worked," Schultz said. "I thought it would be perfect, so I told them, 'We're going to run Florida, and we're going to score.' It didn't work perfectly, but somehow we managed to pull it out."
Perry, which falls to 6-1 and 3-1, got 10 points from Meghan Blaha and seven from Emily Kahoun.
Joe Magill is a freelance writer in Cleveland.