Ohio entered this season with a load of fresh new faces on the roster. The Bobcats’ roster featured seven total players who were not on the team last year, coming to Ohio as either a transfer or a freshman. Three freshmen in particular, have been consistently producing in big ways for Ohio, with less than half a year of college basketball experience under their belt. In Saturday’s 72-62 win against Eastern Michigan, Bailey Tabeling, Monica Williams and Laylay Fantroy were all key pieces in Ohio picking up their fifth win of the year.
Williams has seen the floor the most out of the three freshmen. She started the season in the starting lineup and has not yet given up that spot. She also played the most minutes out of any Ohio player against Eastern Michigan with 34.
Williams has progressed massively throughout her freshman year, becoming increasingly more comfortable with the ball in her hands and attacking on the offensive side of the ball. Her height also allows her to impact the game on the glass, as she finished with eight rebounds against Eastern Michigan, leading the team. Throughout the game, she would attack the rim using many different moves to earn open looks inside the paint.
"Just working, you know I do a lot of drills in practice… going through contact and splitting the defense,” Williams said. “I just use those different moves to get open looks.”
Williams has been proving to be somewhat of a Swiss Army Knife for Ohio this season, providing the Bobcats with many valuable traits.
“Monica did a great job of affecting the game on so many different levels,” Ohio head coach Bob Bolden said. “She drove the basketball, she guarded well, she got other people shots.”
Like Williams, Fantroy has provided Ohio with much-needed versatility on both ends of the court. She was a question mark coming into the game, having dealt with a sprained ankle throughout the week.
“Laylay was told she was going to be a point guard on Thursday, but she didn’t practice because she had a sprained ankle, Boldon said. “We walked through stuff on Friday and were like ‘Okay, we’re going to give it a shot.”
It was difficult to tell she was injured as she had the same high-level energy on defense as usual, which was key in stopping an Eastern Michigan offense with more height than Ohio. Fantroy also added scoring to her workload as well, finishing the game one short of her career high with 14 total points, eight of which came from the free throw line.
The final member of the trio is Tabeling, who has made a name for herself as the team’s go-to shooter behind the arc. Tabeling was her usual self on Saturday, draining threes with ease. She ended the game tallying 12 total points, all of which came on 4-5 shooting from deep. She now is shooting 41% from deep on the year. She was able to impact the game in other ways as well, notching two steals in a game where Ohio forced 26 Eastern Michigan turnovers.
Ohio’s freshman trio of Williams, Fantroy, and Tabeling have been great all year but truly showed their value in a big way against Eastern Michigan.
