South Range
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Location: South Lima, Ohio | ||||
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Coach | Bonnie Molnar | |||
State championships | ||||
National championships |
South Range High School is located in North Lima, south of Youngstown in Mahoning County, Ohio. This team was among the first dominating powers in the area; before Poland Seminary's qualification in 2004, South Range was the team closest to making it to OAC State, finishing fourth in a Northeast Regional in the late 1990s.
It is always hard to determine when a program takes a turn for the worse, but two incidents defined the decline of South Range. First, the program stopped hosting its own Invitational after 2003. The assistant coach fell ill, and as he was the primary editor of the questions, the tournament lost its cost-effectiveness when prices for questions soared. Second, after winning one of the brackets in that last Invitational, South Range participated in the Copley Invitaional in the Blue-Gold division for Regional qualifiers. Playing in the wrong room against the wrong team, and getting soundly thumped by that team (Tippecanoe), led to the program declining to participate in that tournament, and consequently against that level of competition, since.
However, in 2007, led by Sophomore Jarret Greene, South Range made a resurgence, placing 4th in the league Tournament. The next year, they mowed through the Mahoning County's 2nd division, qualifying for the 2009 HSNCT for the first time in school history. The team placed a disappointing 3rd at the East Central Regionals, just missing qualification for OAC State. That said, it was the best regional finish in team history. They weren't perfect, however. They were upset by both Poland and Canfield at the County Tournament, placing 5th and only placed 14th at the NAQT State Tournament.
At the 2009 HSNCT, South Range did what no other Mahoning County team had ever done, winning 4 games in the prelims and qualifying for the Small School playoffs, where they were bounced in the first round by Kent City. Jarret was 70th overall in scoring.
Team Honors
Mahoning County Tournament Champions - 1991, 1993, 1994, 1998, 1999
Individual Honors
Jarret Greene, 2008 Mahoning County Tournament MVP -- 6-14-0, 230 points, 46.00 PPG
Jarret Greene, 2009 Mahoning County Player of the Year -- 15-83-20, 955 points, 68.21 PPG
Jarret Greene, 2009 Mahoning County Tournament MVP -- 63.33 PPG