Norwayne's Maibach, Smithville's Keib share WDR's Girls Basketball Player of the Year

They're both seniors. Both are forwards, but in more ways are more like point forwards — with each sharing a great deal of the ball handling responsibilities — or, better yet, play a mixture of guard and small forward while doing quite a lot of good work operating inside. Both made deep tournament runs with their respective teams in March.

Saying that, Norwayne's Ava Maibach and Smithville's Leah Keib have been named the Wooster Daily Record Girls Basketball Players of the Year. With the high school girls basketball scene in the Wayne/Holmes County area this season being so good and deep with a number of top-of-the-line teams and high-end players, other players that were in consideration were Norwayne's Allie DeMassimo, Dalton's Grace Dorrfer, Triway's Sydney Frank, Waynedale's Kylie Geiser, Loudonville's Addison Wolford, Chippewa's Aira Regan, Hiland's Macy Mullet and Hiland's Perryn Mishler. More: Inside Norwayne girls basketball's three-year rise into one of Ohio's best For Maibach's senior season, she brought a little bit of everything to the table for Norwayne.

From her work at point guard to playing off the ball to using her 5-foot-11 frame and length to crash the boards, utilizing her body to bully defenders for inside scoring chances and her activity on defense to be able to defend different positions, all made her one valuable piece the Bobcats had. Her junior season was something in helping 25-4 Norwayne reach the school's first-ever state Final Four appearance (made the the Division V state title game), but her senior season looked even better. Maibach (14.

2 PPG, 6. 2 RPG, 4. 8 APG, 2.