Mere hours after Wendy Blohm’s tragic, unexpected death at age 73, two girls high school basketball teams she loved dearly went all out to honor her memory.
Wendy, wife of Canton Chiefs coaching legend Bob Blohm, was considered “the First Lady” of the campus rival programs. Fittingly, Friday night’s KLAA Black Division matchup between the Chiefs and Rocks went down to the wire, with Canton hanging on for a 35-33 victory.
The winning shot, in the closing moments, was scored by senior forward Ashley Criscenti, on a short jumper in the lane. She led all players with 18 points.
“There was something special about tonight, in that both teams just wanted to dedicate this night to Wendy Blohm,” said Canton head coach Rob Heitmeyer, who formerly was a Salem assistant coach. “Bob’s wife passed away today, and for both teams, she’s always been someone special to both programs.
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“The girls said a nice prayer before we came over here, and just wanted to play good ‘Bob Blohm basketball.’ Good ball control, making sure we didn’t turn the ball over.”
And after the final buzzer sounded at Salem High School, both teams got together at half-court to further pay respects to Wendy Blohm.
Heitmeyer then smiled when talking about how low scoring the game turned out to be, never with greater than a four-point spread between the teams. Canton’s 14-10 edge after one frame turned into Salem’s 19-18 halftime advantage, and the second half was extremely close.
“Bob always liked to say the first one to 30 (would win), and tonight was just a classic Canton-Salem game,” he continued. “All the lead changes, no team led by more than four.”
On the game-winning play, Criscenti “got a nice feed into the paint and she did a nice turnaround jump shot that danced on the rim and fell in,” said Heitmeyer, whose team (now 4-2 overall, 3-0 in the KLAA Black) also benefitted from Alaina Heitmeyer’s 12-point showing.
Salem (4-1, 2-1) saw its season-opening winning streak stopped at four games, but not without a valiant effort.
“they made a shot, we came down, got a good look and got to the free throw and it didn’t work out. But I was really proud of our girls. We’re making great steps, we’re getting closer.
“We’re getting good experience for our whole team,” Salem head coach Dan Young said. “Everybody played and that’s only going to make us stronger. It’s only December. So that’s the positive, we knew it would be a good game because they have a good team.”
Junior guard Emma Strieter led Salem with 12 points.
Young said the Rocks are getting contributions from the entire roster, led by seniors Madalyn Simko, Maddie Kernahan, Strieter, juniors Jenna Sydlowski, Kyle Pamplona and Jaclyn Deprez.
“Great team chemistry, the girls work really hard,” said Young, whose team now faces Dearborn Divine Child on Dec. 29.
tsmith@hometownlife.com
Twitter: @TimSmith_Sports