CAMDEN – The Mississinawa Valley girls basketball team wrapped up a perfect 10-0 record in the Western Ohio Athletic Conference after a 65-35 win at Preble Shawnee to claim an outright 2025-26 League Championship.
The Blackhawks who shared the conference title with Arcanum and Tri-Village last year was able to navigate through the league this year with big wins at Tri-Village, Newton and Ansonia along with a home win over Arcanum.
The Lady Hawks wanted to make the game against Preble Shawnee special for their fans and had a goal that everyone would play and take part in clinching the championship.
They did that by getting off to a good start racing out to a 25-7 first quarter lead connecting on 5 triples: two each from Seniors Makenna Hoggatt and Paige Emrick and one from sophomore Tenlee Woodbury. Senior Brooklynn Seubert made her presence felt inside going for eight points while her younger sister, freshman Cassidy Seubert added two points.
Brooklynn added another six points in the 2nd period, while Emrick and Cora Hoggatt both chipped in triples as the Hawks took a 42-14 lead at the break
Preble Shawnee got seven points from Josie Mondello-Garrett to lead the Arrows at the half. Also chipping in was Aubrey Unger with a triple and two points each from Ava Apkin, Lainey Hawley and Jenna Dixon.
All of Mississinawa Valley players saw action in this game and each of them would contribute in some way with 11 of the 13 players scoring in the contest.
With a running clock for much of the second half the Blackhawks held a 52-18 lead after the third quarter.
Preble Shawnee picked up their scoring pace in the final stanza with Mondello-Garrett scoring eight of her team high 15 points. Aubrey Unger had seven of her 12 points in the frame as the Arrows nearly matched their three-quarter total with 17 points.
With all the starters watching from the bench the reserve players saw action in much of the 3rd and all of the 4th frame as they became their biggest cheerleaders recognizing each of them when they scored or made a big play. Everyone participated and contributed in what would be a 65-35 win to claim the 2025-26 WOAC Conference Title.
“I thought it was neat how everybody got to play and contribute to tonight’s game,” Mississinawa coach Kirk Comer said after the game.
“It was nice to get everyone time on the floor to be a part of this. Everybody’s been working well together in practice. A lot of times the people who do a lot of the hard work going against the varsity and the scout team don’t get a lot of credit and tonight they were all able be a part of this championship game,” Comer added.
Seniors Brooklynn Seubert and Paige Emrick agreed with their coach on how special it was for everyone to be a part of the game.
“I’m just really proud of how far we’ve come. We had a great team last year, but I really think that this team this year is very disciplined and we play so well together as a team,” Paige Emrick said.
“It’s always been a team effort, coach preaches team and when you look up at that scoreboard everybody’s scoring and it usually says 16,15,14,13, everyone’s contributing and it’s never just one person who is scoring the most points. On almost every play, every single person on our team touches ball before we score and I’m so happy everyone got to be a part of it tonight,” Brooklynn Seubert stated.
On this night Seubert led the way with 17 points and Emrick had14, along with 9 other girls putting the ball through the net.
It’s that type of teamwork that has led to a 17-4 overall record to complete their regular season schedule. The losses have come to some perennial powerhouse teams like Ft. Loramie, Versailles, Legacy Christian and Parkway. While you want to win those games a loss now to those teams can valuable if you can learn from them and help prepare your team in post season.
Mississinawa finds themselves currently in 2nd place behind Russia in the OHSAA RPI rankings to determine the seeds in the upcoming tournament.
Coach Comer feels with this group of kids they have potential to make a nice run in the tournament and in his 30 years of coaching it might be one of the best teams he’s had.
“I told the girls, about mid-season I’ve had a lot of success in 30 years coaching girls basketball. I’ve had a lot of good teams and been blessed to coach a lot of great players, but I don’t think I’ve had a better all-around team. We’re not there yet but for the seniors, we got to get as far as we can and just see where it takes us. The first thing is they have to believe. No matter what the jersey says on the other team we’ve got to believe we’re the better team and play together. They might have a better player or two … but I feel like we have the best team, and if we all play together, we can accomplish big things,” Comer concluded.
Seubert and Emrick speaking on behalf of their other senior teammates are ready to embrace that along with Trinity Reichard, Cora and Makenna Hoggatt as they have been playing together since the 3rd grade.
“I’m very proud of everyone as seniors on this team, it definitely been a goal for us to win a league WOAC championship, going into the eighth grade, that was the year they changed from the CCC to WOAC, and since then we’ve always wanted to win an WOAC championship title as seniors because we felt like we had something specialt,” Seubert explained.
While they are happy to get the league title they want more as the Blackhawks have won back-to-back District Championship and last year advanced to the Regional championship but was denied a trip to the state finals bowing out to Ft. Loramie.
“The key for us is to continue to work hard and prepare for each game the same way, stay together and take it one game at a time,” Emerick reasoned.
It won’t be easy but the formula of playing together and sharing the ball has worked well thus far … now they just need to believe and take the next step in their journey and see where it will take them.
BOX SCORE
Score by Quarter
25 … 17 … 10 …13 – 65 Mississinawa
07 … 07 … 04 … 17 – 35 Preble Shawnee
Team Scoring
MV Geesaman 0-0-2/2 – 2, Woodbury 2-0-0/0 – 6, M. Hoggatt 2-0-0/0 – 6, Sanabria 1-0-0/0 – 3, Reichard 0-1-0/0 – 2, C. Seubert 0-1-3/4 – 5, C. Hoggatt 0-2-1/2 – 5, Livingston 0-0-1/4 – 1, Emerick 4-0-2/4 – 14, B. Seubert 0-5-7/8 – 17, Totals 9-11-16/24 – 65
PS Unger 2-2-2/2 – 12, Apking 0-1-0/0 – 2, Hawley 0-2-0/0 – 4, Dixon 0-1-0/0 2, Mondello-Garrett, 0-6-3/4 – 15, Totals 2-12-5/6 – 35
