West Clermont’s Seini Hicks accepts the Most Valuable Player award after West Clermont’s victory over Seton in the Holiday Hardwood Classic at Cintas Center . Photo by Dick Maloney.
West Clermont’s Anna Swisshelm puts up a shot over the Seton defense in second-half action at the Cintas Center Dec. 27, 2022. Swisshelm scored six points in the Wolves’ victory. Photo by Dick Maloney.
Seini Hicks lays in two of her game-high 20 points in the win over Seton at Cintas Center. Photo by Dick Maloney.
They are halfway through the season with a perfect record (11-0), and the West Clermont High School girls basketball team has been in mid-season form since game one.
The Wolves are 11-0 entering 2023, after wins last week over Seton (58-33) and Anderson (76-28). West Clermont’s closest game Nov. 15, 2022, at Loveland, 55-49; it has won by 9, 31, 34, 14, 16, 16, 6, 37, 33, 25 and 48. The Dec. 27, 2022, rout of Seton, at Xavier University’s Cintas Center as part of the Beacon Orthopaedics Holiday Hardwood Classic, displayed all of West Clermont’s strengths.
Junior forward Seini Hicks scored 20 points and grabbed 18 rebounds, earning game Outstanding Player honors. Hicks had double-digit rebounding efforts in seven of the first 11 games, and double-digit points in eight of the 11. She is second to Winton Woods’s Daniah Trammel in rebounding in the Eastern Cincinnati Conference, and seventh in scoring (13.3 points per game). Senior Anna Swisshelm is sixth in scoring (14.2 ppg), and has scored 10 or more 10 times (she had six vs. Seton).
Freshman Layla Hale is the third Wolves player in double figures in scoring (11.8 ppg).
Both Seton and West Clermont got off to slow starts – the game was tied 3-3 about six minutes in. The Wolves led 12-11 after the first quarter and 29-17 at halftime. West Clermont coach Jeff Click said it took his players a while to get used to the Cintas environment – particularly the different shooting backgrounds. The Wolves’ home court is the same size, which may have given West Clermont an advantage.
“We’re kind of accustomed to the longer floor, but it’s a totally different environment. I thought that once we got settled in, we kind of played the way we were capable of, got adjusted to everything,” Click said. “With our veterans, they’re not going to get flustered and lose focus. They’ll just kind of settle down, play the way they’re capable of and I think that’s kind of what we did.”
Hicks said some players were pulling up from the college three-point line (20.75 feet) instead of the high school line (19.75 feet), “but we were getting shots and rebounds, so it really wasn’t that much of a difference.”
Depth has been one reason for the Wolves’ success. Eight players scored against Seton, and Hicks, Swisshelm, Hale and others present matchup problems.
“It’s been a big advantage for us all year,” Click said. “Some teams say they have depth, but we legit play one through nine, and then we’re able to figure out matchup-wide where the best matchups are and take advantage of it, and I think that’s what you saw tonight.”
That ability to adapt will be crucial the final six weeks of the season. Eight of the final 11 games are inside the ECC – the Wolves have non-league games vs. Ursuline, and in the Classic in the Country Tournament at Berlin Hiland High School Jan. 14 and 15, where they will play Rocky River Magnificat and Newark.
“We’re going to get zoned a lot in our conference. I feel like our shooting percentage should get better, but we’re pretty strong driving the ball,” Hicks said.
Click said he knew his team was capable of the kind of season it has had so far, “but it’s still a lot to ask high school kids to be that consistent over the first 10 games,” he said.
“So now I think the biggest obstacle that we try to focus on is just focus on ourselves and try to really get good at what we do offensively and defensively … and everything else will kind of take care of itself … Doing what we do, and if we do that I think good things will continue to happen to the New Year.”