Wooster girls basketball team quadruples wins

Wooster was arguably the most overlooked area girls basketball team this winter.

After finishing their season with a 12-12 record, the Generals were the most improved team. Wooster quadrupled its win total from a year ago when it finished with a paltry 3-21 record.

The 2025-26 highlights included a Division II district runner-up finish, the program’s best tourney finish in 12 years, and a pair of wins over New Philadelphia, which finished 17-5. A 54-48 win at Orrville to start a girls-boys doubleheader in front of a sellout crowd also provided a memorable moment.

Fifth-year coach Alex Kacere said a brutally honest conversation with the team in the offseason set the tone for the turnaround.

“Over the summer our big thing was, ‘Are we going to come back and do this?’” Kacere said. “Are the girls going to come back and do this? Are the coaches going to come back and do this?

“We told the girls that if they were going to commit back to us and see the light at the end of the tunnel, that we were going to give it back to them 100%.”

Once Kacere and his coaching staff had a full commitment from the team, the mission became simple: take a lot better care of the basketball and spread the workload more on offense.

“The big thing that we recognized is that we needed to work on the fundamentals of passing,” Kacere said. “Literally, go back to the basics of passing, catching and cutting.”

The Generals implemented the Princeton offense and focused on passing the basketball, instead of relying on dribble-drive attacks like the year before.

Senior first-team All-OCC honoree Brooke Ritchie led the balanced turnaround with 13.2 points a game, followed closely by junior OCC second-teamer Jay-Cee Hackett (11.8). Freshman Kayla Reid added 8.1 and sophomore Zoey Phillips 4.8, both named All-OCC honorable mention.

Ritchie knew before the season started she’d likely sacrifice some of her scoring from a junior year that saw her average 19 points, but she was “all in” if it meant more wins.

The Generals won a district semifinal game 55-40 at Mayfield, but Twinsburg ended Wooster’s season with a 62-34 district final victory. The Tigers (21-6 final record) wound up advancing to the regional final, where they lost 76-50 to Akron Hoban.

Wooster’s season ended with four times as many wins, nearly double the assist total and about 100 fewer turnovers than 2024-25.

“This is my most satisfying season out of all four years for sure,” said Ritchie, who will continue her playing career at Marietta. “I was super-proud and honored to be a part of our team this year after the season that we had last year.

“It was definitely hard to come back. I admire my teammates’ ability to show up and work hard throughout the year, but especially during preseason, because at that point none of us really knew how the year was gonna go.”

Making things tougher for Wooster early in the season was seeing returning all-district player Kara Cannon and her family move to Louisiana.

Adding to the rotation that helped turn things around were senior Ameilia Correll; juniors Emma Behler, Anna Melrose and Lily Tudor; and sophomore Lilly Timko.

“We won our third game after our fifth game,” Kacere said. “The girls just started to see real change happening, and it was their dedication to the work.”

Despite the marked improvement, the Generals felt overlooked all season.

“We were ranked ninth or 10th in area (online) polls,” Kacere said. “On the day we played in the district final, we weren’t even mentioned on a list of three other district final games happening that day listed on the radio. We were surprised that we weren’t even mentioned. Our Wooster girls also put in the work and deserve to be recognized.”

The Generals may have missed out on media attention but will long remember the lessons learned about not giving up, sacrifice and teamwork.

“While having a better record from last year was definitely something to remember, the growth that I saw from my teammates and myself was just as special,” Ritchie said.