Going into the 2025-2026 season, Kenston Bombers Head Girls Basketball Coach Kevin Hinkle was deciding on the style of play that would help his team be most successful.
Game photos click here.
Going into the 2025-2026 season, Kenston Bombers Head Girls Basketball Coach Kevin Hinkle was deciding on the style of play that would help his team be most successful.
In addition, determining the depth he had coming off the bench would be important in choosing the best style of play for the Bombers.
With a successful regular season which saw the Bombers finish second in the WRC (8-2 in conference, 13-9 overall), the Bombers offense developed into an up tempo style looking to put a lot of points on the board.
After winning three low scoring games early in the season (36-29 over Chagrin Falls; 39-31 over Austintown-Fitch, and 43-23 over Crestwood) while averaging just 39.3 points per game, a turning point occurred in mid December.
Starting the season 3-3 and playing slower paced, low scoring games, the Bombers completed the regular season utilizing a quicker style in which scoring more points led to going 10-6 in their final 16 games. In fact, in their final 10 regular season victories the Bombers averaged 60.3 points per game.
Thus, Coach Hinkle said playing fast in transition and making their opponent work hard to score was a main point of emphasis as the Bombers prepared to take on the Geneva Eagles in an OHSAA Sectional Final matchup on their home court on Feb. 21.
Executing a game plan which was to play fast and push the ball up the court, the Bombers defeated the Eagles 52-30 to win the OHSAA Sectional Title.
In winning an OHSAA Sectional Title the Bombers completed one of their main goals for the season.
“I think this year, that was one thing that we wanted to check off and something we have been working for since we have lost in the first round over the last three years,” Morgan Cicek said. “We prepped, we knew we were ready and we just had to execute the game plan.”
After losing to the Howland Tigers in their final regular season game on Feb. 17, Coach Hinkle said that Bombers quickly regrouped as they had two excellent days of practice leading into their sectional final matchup with the Eagles.
A main focus at practice was to stay calm, cool and collected if the Eagles tried to slow the game down and also to keep the defensive pressure high on the Eagles offense.
“(We just told them) if they slow down the tempo a little bit, we want to not panic (and) make them work for everything, and that’s what we were trying to do,” Coach Hinkle said.
Certainly, as Cicek alluded to, the excellent preparation at practice helped the Bombers feel confident as they took the court against the Eagles.
From the start of the game onward, the Bombers pushed the pace.
“(Playing up tempo) was always the plan going into this,” said Trinity Osterman. “Just keep pushing the ball forward and forward and just get the biggest lead we can.”
Added Cicek, “We want to play at our pace whether they were going to slow us down or speed us up. Over the course of the season we’ve learned that we have to play at our pace no matter what the other team does. This game, we were able to do that, so that helped us.”
Cicek explained that when Coach Hinkle is instructing the guards to push the pace in transition, they are keeping their eyes up looking to quickly find a teammate open ahead down low in the post or someone open in the corner as they are hoping to get the shot off before the defense can set up.
For Osterman, who had an excellent game in the low post as she dropped in 14 points, playing up tempo and scoring in transition is an enjoyable style of basketball which she prefers to play over a half court set.
“It doesn’t give the defense a chance to set up and gets all of us flowing together,” Osterman said.
In pushing the pace throughout the contest the Bombers got out to a 12-7 lead after one quarter. Then, in the second quarter they outscored the Eagles 12-6, to take a 24-13 lead into halftime.
The Bombers did not take their foot off the gas pedal in the second half as they continued to play up tempo and push the pace.
“I thought we did a good job, especially early in the fourth quarter of creating tough shots, getting rebounds, getting down the court and stretching that (lead) from 15 to 20 (points),” Coach Hinkle said. “I think that was a big finishing statement that we still had some fresh legs in that fourth quarter.”
For the game, the Bombers were led by Cicek (16 points), Osterman (14), Addison Lowe (5), Kait Paystrup (5), Aurora Young (5), Tay Cable (4), Emily Grubich (2), and Aria Lemons (1).
The Bombers played Bay on Feb. 25 in an OHSAA District Semifinal matchup that finished after deadline.
