Winless no more: Campbell Memorial picks up first win of the season, 33-25 over Lordstown

Junior Diamon Sims scored a game-high 18 points, while senior Maddy Shuger returned from injury for her senior night

Winless no more: Campbell Memorial picks up first win of the season, 33-25 over LordstownCAMPBELL, Ohio – On Wednesday evening, Memorial Campbell first celebrated Maddy Shuger, and then celebrated their first win of the season, 33-25 over Lordstown.

Both teams entered the game winless on the season and Campbell Memorial made sure they would walk away with the notch in the win column by outscoring Lordstown 9-1 in the final quarter.

After trailing by nine at the half, and by as many as 10 in the third quarter, Lordstown scored the final seven points of the quarter, including a 3-pointer with two seconds left by Navawna King, to cut the lead to 25-24 after three.

“It’s easy when you aren’t used to winning to have some mental mistakes,” Campbell Memorial head coach John Childers said. “It’s tough to teach winning, especially if you haven’t been there. We got out to that big lead at halftime and we kind of started to give it up in the third quarter and reality started setting in for our girls that we can’t take a break.”

Memorial Campbell got back to its patience on offense in the fourth quarter and moved the ball, creating open shots that just didn’t go in. They made just two field goals and four free throws in the final eight minutes, but the defense played well as Lordstown missed all 12 of its field goal attempts and made just a single free throw.

“We really came out in the fourth quarter, and I think played some of our better basketball,” Childers said. “We didn’t finish as much as we wanted to, but it looked good at points in the fourth quarter.”

Junior Diamon Sims scored five of her game-high 18 points in the fourth quarter for Memorial Campbell.

“We go to the pulse of her.,” Childers said. “If she is having an off night, it seems like we are as a team, and when she is on, she is just as good as anybody we pay against.”

Sims was just happy to be on the winning team.

“We have been talking about it all day and mentally preparing ourselves,” Sims said. “We were hype, and we were able to get the win tonight.”

The first celebration Wednesday was for Shuger, the team’s only senior on senior night.

But it was more than a typical senior night.

It was the first time Shuger had stepped on the court with her teammates since the season’s opening game as she injured her knee just five minutes into that game. Wearing a knee brace on her left knee, Shuger just wanted to be out there with the team and they wanted to be out there with her.

“I was doing therapy every day and trying to do my best,” Shuger said. “I know my team wanted me back and they were asking me every day about when I was going to get back. It was all about the team this year.”

Despite not being able to play, Shuger was still around her teammates every day and was doing anything she could to try to make the team better.

“Life is unfortunate sometimes, but she was at every practice, she was doing what she needed to do, she was helping her teammates grow,” Childers said. “She is the true essence of a leader.”

The crowd, one of the largest of the season for Memorial Campbell, screamed every time Shuger put up a shot, trying to will one to go in the basket. And then in the game’s final minute, the senior guard stepped up the free throw line and knocked down the first for her only point of the game as the crowd went crazy.

“I was happy and ecstatic for her,” Childers said. “Especially her getting to the line there in the fourth quarter and scoring that point. I think that means a lot to her.”

When the game ended and the teams were done shaking hands, the student section broke into a chant of “Mad-dy! Mad-dy! Mad-Dy!” It brought Shuger to tears as she was surrounded by her teammates in a group hug.

“The amount of people that were here, we never get this many people at the game,” Shuger said. “This many people cheering for us and coming out to support senior night and us getting a win makes it better.”