First Posted: 4/3/2014
It’s possible no one has made a greater impact on Lima Senior girls basketball than Indiya Benjamin.
The 5-foot, 6-inch point guard is a four-year starter who broke the 25-year-old school career scoring record of Tammy Williams. She led the Spartans to 20, 15 and 13 wins the last three seasons, was named first-team All-Ohio and earned an NCAA Division I scholarship.
Add another honor to that list. She is The Lima News Dream Team girls basketball Player of the Year.
Joining Benjamin on the girls Dream Team are: Madison Dackin (Bath), Lexie Davis (Perry), Haley Horstman (New Knoxville), Kristen Miller (Ottawa-Glandorf), Erin Morrow (Van Wert), Paige Ordway (Continental), Kaycee Rowe (Allen East), Meredith Shepherd (Lima Central Catholic) and Rion Thompson (Lima Senior).
Lima Senior’s Vince Halliday is the Coach of the Year.
It’s also possible Benjamin will continue to have an effect on Lima Senior’s girls basketball program after graduation. Halliday says he has noticed it already.
“There are more and more little girls who want to be Indiya Benjamin,” Halliday said.
“We have a seventh grade team that was undefeated and a fifth grade team that won the city recreation league. They all know who Indiya is,” he said. “When you have a player like Indiya, it helps the program along tremendously.”
Benjamin says she and her teammates have tried to reach out to the younger girls.
“We encouraged a lot of girls to play basketball and the program is doing good, and it has encouraged a lot of people who had the dream to play basketball to do it even more because we were successful,” she said. “Maybe we influenced them to keep following their dreams.”
Benjamin’s basketball dream began when an older cousin, Juwuan Godsey, encouraged her interest in the game.
“He was the first person to ever put a ball in my hands when I was young,” she said. From there, she progressed to competing against cousins closer to her age, to YMCA teams to school teams.
“The first time I saw her play she was in the seventh grade, and I don’t know that she was 5 feet tall,” Halliday said. “But you could just see that she had that flair about her. The vision she had even then, you could tell she was going to be special.”
Benjamin averaged 20.1 points and 10.2 assists a game this season, up from 17.4 points and 6.8 assists when she was a junior. She had a 3-to-1 assists to turnovers ratio, averaging only three turnovers a game.
She was named first-team Division I All-Ohio after being third-team as a junior and was the Three Rivers Athletic Conference Player of the Year.
She hit a school-record 65 3-pointers this season, but pointed to better decision making as her biggest improvement in her final season of high school basketball.
“I think I improved on that, being able to identify who I’m passing the ball to and what times I need to pass the ball. It’s something I got better at, and I had fewer turnovers. I was just smarter all around with what I did with the ball,” Benjamin said. “To get my players involved is one of the main things I’m known for.”
She signed with NCAA Division I Binghamton University of Binghamton, N.Y., in November and will begin classes there in a summer session starting July 7.
“They were actually the first (recruiting) letter I ever got in the mail. That was at the beginning of my sophomore year,” Benjamin said. “They were the first people who reached out, and they continued to show love and be there. That was probably the main reason I decided to go with them.”
The coaching staff which recruited her will not be there when Benjamin arrives, though. Binghamton coach Nicole Scholl was fired March 10 after a 5-25 record this season and an overall 68-115 record in six seasons.
The three incoming recruits Binghamton signed are all guards. Benjamin knows she is stepping into a new level of competition in college basketball.
“I know it’s going to be a lot more physical, and I need to be a lot stronger and quicker,” she said.
She will, no doubt, apply the same work ethic that made her an example for future Lima Senior players to emulate.
“When your best player is your hardest worker in practice and your most competitive kid, it’s just real easy for the rest of the team and the rest of the program to buy in,” Halliday said. “It just rubs off.”
GIRLS DREAM TEAM
Indiya Benjamin (Lima Senior), 5-6, Senior, 20.1
Madison Dackin (Bath), 5-9, Junior, 13.3
Lexie Davis (Perry), 6-2, Senior, 15.6
Haley Horstman (New Knoxville), 5-7, Senior, 15.5
Kristen Miller (Ottawa-Glandorf), 5-6, Senior, 12.6
Erin Morrow (Van Wert), 5-9, Junior, 14.2
Paige Ordway (Continental), 5-10, Senior, 17.7
Kaycee Rowe (Allen East), 5-8, Senior, 18.2
Meredith Shepherd (Lima Central Catholic), 5-6, Senior, 14.8
Rion Thompson (Lima Senior), 5-9, Sophomore, 21.2
Player of the Year
Indiya Benjamin (Lima Senior)
Coach of the Year
Vince Halliday (Lima Senior)
Honorable Mention
Danielle Van Dyne (Bath), Brooke Bostelman (Kenton), Sara Warner (Wapakoneta), Alyssa Manley (Bath), Abby Waddle (Elida), Elissa Ellerbrock (Ottawa-Glandorf), Alexis Dowdy (Van Wert), Carly Buzzard (Wapakoneta), Lindsey Motycka (Crestview), Tori Wyss (Ada), Sarah Schriner (Bluffton), Sydney McCluer (Columbus Grove), Emily Bauer (Crestview), Rileigh Stockwell (Delphos Jefferson), Julia Thatcher (Lincolnview), Mackenzie Riggenbach (Crestview), Carly Clum (Allen East), Sydney Mohler (Lima Central Catholic), Madison Stolly (Lima Central Catholic), Emily Patton (Waynesfield-Goshen), Shelby Spradlin (Upper Scioto Valley), Bree Mullins (Upper Scioto Valley), Brooke Winner (Marion Local), Tori Lennartz (Fort Recovery), Allie Thobe (Marion Local), Sarah Kanney (Coldwater), Paige Lehman (New Knoxville), Kayla Richard (Minster), Ally Mikesell (St. Henry), Claire Fischer (Minster), Logan Arnold (Minster), Kylie Osterhage (Kalida), Amber Gerdeman (Leipsic), Taylor Mangas (Ottoville), Megan Maag (Pandora-Gilboa), Brittany Kahle (Kalida), Haley Gerten (Leipsic), Shalynn Morman (Leipsic), Kelly Nadler (Leipsic), Vanessa McCullough (Pandora-Gilboa)