Area FC teams see growth at Monroeville summer league

MONROEVILLE — The Monroeville girls basketball program recently wrapped up a first-time summer league with eight other teams, including four other Firelands Conference programs. The league played multiple games every Monday in June in three different time slots. The games consisted of 20-minute halves, 12 minutes short of a regular season game, with a running clock until the final minute of each half. Shooting fouls resulted in one point and just one free throw attempt, though three-point attempts that resulted in fouls were worth two points and a free throw. Fouls in the final minute were two free throws with a clock stoppage, while overtime was sudden death, with the first team to score winning the game. Host Monroeville went 2-8 over the duration of the league. Third-year coach Ryan Bohn has a roster that will have no seniors after he graduated five seniors from a team that was 13-10 overall and 10-4 in the FC, good for third place behind champion New London and Mapleton. Among those who graduated include all-time three-point leader — single-season and career — Grace Stieber, who was also the FC Player of the Year and a Div. VI All-Ohio special mention selection. "We have a very young group this coming year," Bohn said. "This summer was all about gaining experience and confidence." Bohn said the Eagles will have two juniors, Taylor Scheid and Lilly Stein. However, Stein is out until late October after a hip surgery following last season. Among the four sophomores will include Sophia Stieber, who was on the All-FC second team a year ago, while Bohn is also anticipating four freshmen. "We also had some eighth-graders that gained some valuable experience this summer playing alongside high school girls," Bohn said. "We are just focusing on "the process" and trying to get better every day. "Our girls work hard, and they will become more competitive as they gain more experience." Western Reserve will be coming off a 6-15 (5-9 FC) season from 2024-25. The Roughriders had no seniors last season but went 7-1 to lead all teams in the summer league games. St. Paul was 3-20 overall last season and 2-12 in the FC, and also had no seniors. The Flyers went 5-1 in summer league games at Monroeville, losing only to Western. St. Paul missed two games because the team traveled to Findlay for an overnight camp on June 23-24. "We really appreciate Ryan putting this together," second-year head coach Steve Frazee said. "It was a really good experience because there were a lot of schools that are similar in size. "We got to play some teams we don't normally see, and of course, some teams we do see," he added. "So it was nice to be able to get out and go against someone else instead of just practicing or doing some other internal offseason work." Frazee had 12 players for the summer, with 13 total in the program. That is up from nine from a year ago, though five of his 13 will be freshmen. "We were able to play all 12 girls in every game," Frazee said. "We basically just rotated girls in and out. It wasn't about the wins or losses." However, Frazee noted at Findlay, his team gave away a pair of games to Medina and Eastlake North. That included when the Flyers were up by five with under a minute to go but lost. "But that's about just trying to learn how to win," he said. "But it was competitive. We just took some bad shots and ended up losing instead of working the clock better. We still need to learn how to win." As far as what he liked the most, Frazee said summer league should be taken at face value. However, he thought his team played more under control. "We valued our possessions a lot more, which is something we talked about daily last year," he said. "But I thought our rebounding was good, and we had girls diving on the floor for loose balls. That doesn't always happen in June. "We were very aggressive. I got a lot of compliments on how hard the girls were playing, so that was really good." Also from the area, South Central went 7-2 over nine games, while Plymouth was 2-7. Other teams participating included Hillsdale (7-2), Bucyrus (5-5), Lucas (2-5) and Crestline (1-7). The first official day of coaching for the 2025-26 season is Oct. 24. The regular season gets underway statewide on Nov. 21.