Smithville's Keib leads basketball resurgence

View our corresponding photo gallery

Photo gallery: Smithville-Canton Central Catholic girls basketball

Smithville senior Leah Keib scores career-high 27 points in a narrow loss to Canton Central Catholic.

It’s crazy how much has changed in a span of a year for the Smithville girls basketball team.

Gone are standouts Madi Singer and Aly Wickens and everything they brought to the team, both skill-wise and in the boxes known as the intangibles. Fortunately, then-junior and now-senior Leah Keib was a willing student, and it helped manifest her into one of the Wayne County Athletic League’s and the area’s best all-around players.

“I learned from their leadership, and I learned how to communicate,” Keib said. “Madi was really good at putting the ball on her hip and calling out the play and getting everyone set. That’s something that I’ve learned — how to have patience and get us set up in what we need to be in.”

Adding point guard to her repertoire didn’t come easy, but as evidenced Feb. 14 against Canton Central Catholic, Keib has tackled the task.

“I’ve never been a point guard,” Keib said. “Madi was really good for us the past four years, so just stepping into that role was tough, learning how to take contact, have them up in your grill, sealing off and handling the pressure opponents give you. There are some teams that are really good at it too.”

To opponents, it may look more like a speed bump for Keib as she has developed her game to include ballhandling. Averaging 16.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists, she is drilling 40% from downtown, 55% from inside the arc and 70% from the free-throw line. Against the No. 2-seeded Crusaders in the Division VI Northeast District, she poured in a career-high 27 points in a 43-37 loss.

“She worked really hard on her game in the offseason to expand to the point guard,” coach Eric Nickles said. “We’ve asked her to do that. We ask her to post up; we ask her to guard the opponent’s best player. We ask a lot of her, and she’s stepped up.

“I am so proud of the player and leader that she has become. She works hard, and she has earned everything she gets.”

With Keib’s growth into her role as the leader, go-to person and the engine that makes the Smithies roll, so has the success.

Since Jan. 8, a time that saw Smithville sitting 6-6 overall and 4-4 in the league, it has gone 6-4 and 5-2 in the back half of league play. The Smithies avenged losses to Chippewa (40-38) and Waynedale (37-34) and took both the No. 1 and 2 seeds to the end of their ropes in Rootstown (48-44) and Canton Central Catholic.

Or as the slogan goes on the back of the Smithies warmup shirts, they simply rowed the boat.

“It just means to keep going, even when you’re down by 10 or more,” Keib said. “You just keep pushing to get to that final result, and you just keep pushing through to get better.”

And that’s exactly what Smithville has done.

“That first half of the season didn’t start the way we wanted it to,” she said. “But everyone stepped into their roles by the end of the season, and we just all came together and played our best.”

Nickles couldn’t have agreed more with his senior.

“It starts with the leadership of Leah (Keib) and our seniors,” he said. “It has been really good, and they’ve kind of pulled the younger kids along. Also, the growth of Caylee (Zimmerly) has helped too. We feel really confident with her handling the ball in pressure situations.

“We’ve gotten better defensively all year. Everyone knows our program is built on that, and in the first half of the year, we were not as good defensively as we are now. We’ve learned to play hard for four quarters, and I am proud of our effort tonight.”

On the season Zimmerly is second on the team, averaging 7.8 points, and is followed by Rebekah Keib (7.1), Kiersten Ross (4.8), Faith Lengacher (4.2) and Reagan Gherian (2.8).

A tough schedule, which includes playing the toughest league in the area and a nonleague slate that proved to be tougher than originally thought, has only helped with the growth.

“Our league is such a grind,” Nickles said. “The first five teams are phenomenal. Hillsdale is much improved. One through six and it’s a grind every single night. There are legit five teams that could compete for a district championship and move on to regionals in our league. That’s pretty insane.

“That’s a testament to the league and to the players and the coaches that have been here and worked. We showed our growth with those wins over Chippewa and Waynedale. As a coaching staff, we couldn’t be more proud of the growth that this group has had.”

With that continued growth, there is still one key factor to the success of the Green Machine, and that’s senior standout Leah Keib.

“We go as she goes; that’s the bottom line,” Nickles said. “When she plays well, it makes us hard to guard. Down the stretch here, Faith (Lengacher), Reagan (Gherian) and Kiersten (Ross) have all hit threes. Rebekah (Keib) has hit some shots, and that’s something that we can do. Everyone has really played well, and she drives us.”

More importantly, with all that growth both with Keib and the talented players around her, it’s about peaking at the right time.

“You want to be playing your best come tournament time,” Nickles said. “I really feel that this team is.”