St. Mary CC loss changed to forfeit win

The St. Mary Central Catholic girls basketball team lost on the court to Tiffin Calvert last week. The Panthers had a small lead in the second half before Calvert dominated the rest of the way in a 49-34 Sandusky Bay Conference River Division victory on Dec. 11. Earlier this week, it was determined that Calvert had inadvertently played one girl for seven quarters between the junior varsity and varsity games that night. OHSAA rules state that a player can only play in six quarters a night. Overtime periods do not count toward quarters for one evening. That forced the Senecas to forfeit the game, which was made official Thursday. Because of that, SMCC entered Friday's game against Danbury with a 5-2 overall record, instead of 4-3. The Panthers are officially 3-1 in league play, rather than 2-2. "It was basically discovered through word of mouth and not found during the varsity game," SMCC athletic director Steve Ruthsatz said. "After hearing that one of the Calvert girls may have played seven quarters, we checked video and scorebooks and found that was indeed the case." Despite being in the same league, the two teams will not play again during the regular season. SMCC is part of the North division of the SBC River, while Calvert is in the South. Ruthsatz said the Calvert girl in question played all four quarters of the JV game, as well as three quarters of the varsity contest. "I notified Calvert athletic director Adam Smith, who handled the matter from there internally and with the OHSAA basketball administrator and a member of our Northwest District board," Ruthsatz said. SMCC is seeing improved success this season under second-year coach Kevin Youskievicz. The Panthers won just one game last year, a 39-36 win over New Riegel. That snapped an 82-game losing streak dating back to February 2021. SMCC's five wins this season are already the most since the Panthers went 12-12 in 2019-20. Freshman Reid Didion leads the Panthers at 13.4 points per game. Senior Allison Lill is scoring 7.7 points a night while Evelyn Shafrath tops SMCC with 8.9 rebounds per contest. The Panthers face Monroeville (2-4) on Saturday, South Central (4-3) on Dec. 27 and Galion (2-4) on Jan. 5. "Our girls basketball program is definitely much improved and on the rise," Ruthsatz said. "Coach Kevin Youskievicz and his staff are doing a great job. We are much more competitive than in the past few seasons and the culture of the program is excellent right now."