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HOWLAND – Gabby Kline didn’t want to waste her time.
She really didn’t expect to win the 2016 Trumbull County Coaches Association Player of the Year Award, but her coach, Mark Baker, said she should probably prepare a speech just in case.
“I was like, ‘Well, I don’t want to waste my time and prepare one,’ ” Kline said of her conversation with Baker. “He was like, ‘All right, whatever.’ “
It’s a good thing Kline always listened to her coach.
The senior was named the 28th recipient of the honor at the TCCA Player of the Year banquet Monday at Leo’s Ristorante in Howland. Kline averaged a double-double in leading the Tigers to their first district title in school history.
Maybe the most remarkable part was that Kline was the first Newton Falls female to win the award, considering the Tigers are annually one of the best teams in the area. With that in mind, the moment meant just as much to Baker as it did to Kline.
“It means the world to me,” Baker said. “It’s almost to the point that it’s emotional for me. It makes me think back to all the years I’ve been coming here and all the senior girls that I’ve brought to this banquet. The memories it brings back of the kids: the good times that we had, the bad times that we shared, the laughs that we had, the cries that we shared – it’s an overwhelming list of memories. It’s a fantastic honor not only for Gabby but for Newton Falls girls basketball in general.”
It didn’t take long for Baker to point out what put Kline over the top.
Kline may stand at 6-foot-1, but she was much more than a post player for the Tigers. She could shoot from the outside, drive into the lane, post up or pull up. Her versatility made her unguardable at times, and such an ability didn’t happen by chance. Kline spent hours on end honing her shooting form, which she said Baker changed her freshman year. The modification allowed her to add another dimension to her game.
“I was a decent shooter my freshman year,” Kline said. “I was OK, but my coach changed my shooting form. Then I became a really good outside shooter.”
Kline, who averaged 19.1 points and 10 rebounds as a senior, ended up scoring 1,491 points and grabbing 890 rebounds for her career – both school records – but individual records weren’t what motivated Kline. She wanted to reach a level not met by team in school history: a district title. Her and the Tigers did just that this past season by beating Brookfield, 32-28, in a Division III district championship game.
“Out of all my records and everything I had in high school, that was definitely the one thing that I wanted,” she said. “None of those (records) would have mattered to me as much if I wouldn’t have won that one.”
The driving force became obvious to Baker toward the end of Kline’s senior year.
He said Kline led by example throughout her first three years, with a great work ethic and attitude, but as her final season wore on, she began to matured even more.
“The latter half of this season, and really when we made the tournament run, she really became the leader on the team that we always hoped she would be,” Baker said. “She was the tactical leader when she needed to show Xs and Os. She was the emotional leader when they needed a pick-me-up. She was the cheerleader when the team needed her to be. She really did all of those things, especially late in the season. She’s always had those characteristics about her, but she really emerged as this young women who could do it all in the latter half of this season.”
Her career isn’t ending, either. Kline will continue as a student-athlete at Ursuline College in the fall. The ending to her high school career is one she won’t forget, for multiple reasons.
“It’s a really big honor because our girls basketball program is so good now, so I’m honored to be the only one,” said Kline of winning the award. “It’s just icing on the cake now to my high school career.
“I’m going to miss my high school basketball team, but I’m excited to keep playing basketball.”