Boys Basketball: Grove City Christian Eagles plan to build on breakthrough season
As the Grove City Christian boys basketball team was receiving its runner-up awards after a 51-36 loss to East Knox in a Division IV district final March 5 at Capital, a supporter in the stands yelled, “We’ll be back.”
With no seniors in the program, coach Chris Timlin believes the Eagles have the potential to make that happen.
“That’s the attitude they should have,” Timlin said. “We’re so young and when you look at our basketball season, we were only out of three games the entire season. The game with London (80-51 loss) and the two games with Harvest Prep (90-54 and 94-55 losses).
“Every other game that we played in was competitive, so these kids are going to come into next season understanding how to compete quarters one through four.”
Grove City Christian, which was seeking its first district title since 2017, led third-seeded East Knox 20-17 early in the second half before the Bulldogs took control and won their first district championship.
Seth Vaughn led the fifth-seeded Eagles with 15 points and Caleb Ransom added 12. Both are sophomore guards.
Grove City Christian finished 14-10 overall and went 10-4 in the MSL-Cardinal Division to place second behind Harvest Prep (14-0).
Another key player expected to return is guard Braydan Taylor, who was one of only two juniors. He averaged 15.8 points and 7.8 rebounds to lead the Eagles in both categories and was named MSL-Cardinal Player of the Year and first-team all-district.
“I could hear the parents,” said Taylor, whose team rebounded after finishing 5-15 overall and 3-11 in the league last season. “We’re going to be back next year. We’re bringing everybody back. This team has grown so much. We made it to a district final and we weren’t supposed to be in this spot this year.”
Ransom averaged 14.2 points and 7.3 rebounds and was first-team all-league and second-team all-district, and Vaughn averaged 15.3 points and was second-team all-league and third-team all-district.
Sophomore guard Trenton Timlin, the coach’s son, was honorable mention all-league.
Along with his entire roster expected to return, coach Timlin believes the team should be boosted by junior forward Jimmy Suhayda, who missed the season with a knee injury.
“Jimmy is making a full recovery and that’s going to be a tremendous amount of help, especially on the defensive side of the court,” coach Timlin said. “Depth won’t be an issue next season.
“I’m really anticipating being able to comfortably play eight players, which is my magic number in terms of what we like to do. My guess is Braydan, Trenton, Caleb and Seth probably played 97 percent of the available minutes in the entire year and that probably wore down on them quite a bit.”
fdirenna@thisweeknews.com
@ThisWeekFrank
GROVE CITY CHRISTIAN BOYS BASKETBALL
•Record: 14-10 overall
•MSL-Cardinal standings: Harvest Prep (14-0), Grove City Christian (10-4), Berne Union (7-6), Zanesville Rosecrans (6-6), Millersport (6-8), Fairfield Christian (6-8), Fisher Catholic (2-10), Corning Miller (2-11)
•Seniors lost: None
•Key returnees: Caleb Ransom, Braydan Taylor, Trenton Timlin and Seth Vaughn
•Postseason: Def. Millersport 62-50; def. Danville 53-52; lost to East Knox 51-36 in Division IV district final
This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Grove City Christian plans to build on breakthrough season
