Gigi Bower has Olentangy Liberty girls basketball prepared for postseason run

POWELL, Ohio – Gigi Bower has refused to let rough times keep her down for long this winter.

Insisting on that mentality might be the biggest reason Bower and her teammates on the Olentangy Liberty girls basketball team have matured into one of the Central District’s top contenders with the tournament approaching.

During a 76-44 win over Dublin Coffman on Jan. 20, Bower poured in seven 3-pointers to lead the way.

Her shooting wasn’t as sharp four days later as she was held to 11 points, but the overall result – a 40-32 win over Grove City – served as an example of how far she has come.

“I feel like last year and my freshman year, if I (missed) a shot, I (got) down on myself,” Bower said. “Then in my mind, ‘I’m going to miss. I’m going to miss. I’m going to miss.’ If that’s my mindset, I am going to miss. I just have to get to the next shot faster, so that’s what I’ve done.”

The Patriots are in their third season under head coach Tom Waterwash, a former assistant whose team went 13-11 in 2020-21 before improving to 18-6 and reaching a Division I district semifinal last season.

Liberty finished the regular season 20-2 with a 55-28 win over Hilliard Davidson on Friday night and is the No. 3 seed for the district tournament.

The Patriots split with Coffman, surrendering a 12-point lead and losing 43-41 on Dec. 2 before avenging that loss and ending the Shamrocks’ 71-game league winning streak in the rematch.

Their other loss was 52-32 on Jan. 15 to Louisville (Kentucky) Sacred Heart.

“It didn’t happen as quickly as any of us wanted it to,” Waterwash said. “It’s been a group where we’ve all kind of grown up together the last couple years. My first year, we were super young. We had kids that were playing as sophomores and in that COVID year we lost a ton of close games, which you can kind of expect with a young team. I made mistakes as a young coach.

“It’s a pretty unique group. It’s kind of a tough team to play because there’s not that one player teams can lock onto. There’s a lot of kids that can score who are pretty athletic. It’s been a fun team and we share the ball, and Gigi is a super willing passer who can get in that mode where she can score when she needs to.”

Waterwash took over as Liberty’s coach following a six-year tenure by Sam Krafty, who guided the program to a 111-42 mark that included a regional runner-up finish in his first season in 2014-15.

Waterwash served as an assistant for four seasons under Krafty, including in 2017-18 and 2018-19 when the Patriots were district runners-up.

While eventual college players like Kristen Levering (Miami University) and Lexi Fisher (Omaha, Ohio Dominican) led the way on the Patriots’ only previous district championship team, Bower is setting herself up for a basketball career beyond high school as well. She already has received significant interest from most schools in the Mid-American Conference.

After averaging 10 points and earning second-team all-league honors as a freshman and 12.1 points while making first-team all-league and second-team all-district last winter, Bower has upped her average to 16 points.

She also averages four rebounds, two assists and two steals, but outside shooting has been her biggest strength.

Listed at 5-foot-9, Bower made a 3-pointer with 7.1 seconds left on Feb. 4 as Liberty edged Marysville 54-53 in overtime. The Monarchs are the district’s No. 2 seed.

In Friday night's win over Hilliard Davidson, she hit six 3-pointers to set the program’s single-season mark at 75 made 3s in a season, extended her program record for made 3-pointers in a season to 184.

“Honestly we should have only lost one game, but I think we’re in a really good place especially going into the tournament,” Bower said. “It’s a complete improvement from last year. We’re more well-rounded this year. We have guards, we have shooters, we have two true posts and I think we play more as a team than last year. We move the ball better.”

One inspiration for Bower has been her grandfather, George Caplea, who spends most of his time in Florida but flew in to catch Liberty’s win over Coffman.

“He’s super proud of me and always motivating me,” Bower said. “He’s super emotional when he’s at games.”

Liberty has just two key seniors in Addison Marston, a 6-2 forward who averages 8.5 points and 4.7 rebounds, and 5-11 forward Ryan Chapman, who averaged 4.5 points and four rebounds.

“We’re on a really good road to the tournament and I’m really happy with where we’re at and the progress we’ve made,” Marston said. “Me and Gigi have played together for three years, so it’s easy to play together. She’s an amazing shooter and has the height to play inside. I can also play on the perimeter as well as inside, so it’s easy to play off of each other and switch with each other.”

Liberty’s most likely roadblock to winning the second district title in program history will be fifth-seeded Westerville South, which it would face if both teams advance to the district finals.

If the Patriots win the district, they could end up with a rematch with Marysville or in a matchup against defending state champion Reynoldsburg, which is the sixth seed, in a regional semifinal.

Being a program that competes at this level, though, is something that has taken years to build according to Waterwash and standout players like Bower.

“Coach Krafty came in and kind of changed the culture pretty fast,” Waterwash said. “It had been up and down and he had a really good group. Our kids worked really hard. I know kids across the state of Ohio work really hard, but our kids take a lot of pride and we’re starting to see it in a lot of levels what our expectations are.

"Gigi has started pretty much every game in her career. Over the last month, she’s taken huge steps to be a well-rounded scorer. She got face-guarded a lot her first two years, but it hasn’t happened as much this year. She’s attacking the basket, so you have to give her a step.”