SHELBY — For the last three years, Shelby senior Demi Hipp has been dreaming of her senior basketball season.

Every single practice from her freshman to junior year, every single offseason workout, every single practice free throw has all been for this moment.

Her time.

After putting in the work over the last three years, Hipp is finally a senior and has a major role with the Shelby Whippets girls basketball team as the starting point guard. And the Whippets aren’t missing a beat. They head into their matchup with Medina at Cedar Point’s Jingle Jam Shootout 6-3 on the season which is amazing considering what they graduated last year.

Three All-Ohioans who combined for more than 40 points a game graduated in Olivia and Hayley Baker and Sophie Niese, all who signed to play college basketball at Division II programs. Then, the Whippets lost sharpshooting junior Mallary Gundrum to a knee injury, so four of their Top 5 scorers from a year ago, all gone.

Then, the other player in that Top 5 was lost for a short period of time when Audi Albert suffered an Achilles strain sidelining her for a stretch of the early season.

But the Whippets still had Hipp.

“More than anything, it is all about her composure on the floor,” Shelby coach Natalie Lantz said. “It was rough because after the first scrimmage and we were playing all these big Division I schools, I felt so positive because we ran them and it was great and it looked like we could do the same thing we did last year and then the very next practice, Mallary Gundrum goes down and everyone has to change their roles. Then Trinity Baker has an ankle injury the next scrimmage and we had to adjust again. It took the wind out of our sails a little bit, but then comes Demi who just showed a ton of composure and leadership. Her fight is amazing and she leads by example. Without her, we aren’t where we are.”

Hipp embracing leadership role

Hipp is a rarity in today’s athletic world. Usually, when athletes aren’t put in the starting lineup from the word go or don’t have a major role as a young player, they view it as a time to tuck tail and run. Just look at the transfer portal in college football if you need an example. Just look at the diminishing numbers in high school basketball if you really need an eye-opener.

But that isn’t Hipp’s style. As a backup point guard to first team All-Ohioan Sophie Niese for the last three years, Hipp wasn’t about to call it quits because she wasn’t playing 32 minutes a night and scoring 15 points a game. Instead, she showed up to practice every single day since she was a freshman with one goal in mind. Sure, she wanted to get better as a player herself, but her No. 1 goal was to make her teammates better so the team could go out there and win every single night.

“Following behind Sophie Niese wasn’t easy,” Hipp said. “She is an amazing point guard and maybe the best in our program’s history and she honestly gave me my best qualities as a point guard. She was always so calm with the ball and it led to a lot of success so I know she is the perfect role model. I just try to mold myself after her because I saw how much she helped our team.”

Hipp was instrumental in helping the Whippets go 22-0 in the regular season last year winning their fourth consecutive Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference championship. Not because she went out and scored a ton of points or grabbed the most rebounds, but because she made the starters work extremely hard in practice so that when it came to game time, whoever was guarding Niese didn’t even compare to the way Hipp guarded her in practice.

“It had to be tough to be behind someone who started from her freshman year and was a really good point guard,” Lantz said. “Most schools don’t have a good point guard and we were fortunate enough to have two coming through at the same time. Demi deserves so much credit because she still came in every day at practice, worked her butt off and stuck it out and you don’t see that much in today’s athletics. We put Sophie and Demi against each other a lot in practice and it made them both so much better.”

Now, Niese is suiting up for Ashland University leaving the starting point guard role to Hipp, who has been coming at the bit to take over a program that went 26-1 last season.

“From the scoring aspect, for a little while, we lost our Top 5 scorers from last year so I knew I had the ball in my hands every play so I had to look toward the hoop more and be that offensive catalyst,” Hipp said. “I have to drive and kick to my open teammates and make sure I did my part in getting everyone involved.”

The true test of a leader

Hipp’s leadership was put to the test on Dec. 17 in a road game at River Valley. It was a showdown between the two likely favorites to win the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference championship so all eyes were on that game. Tipoff was pushed back to 8 p.m. because a middle school wrestling tournament being held in the gym was running long. There would be no junior varsity game either. So, it was literally, show up and play. No time to settle into the environment.

The Whippets were down 15 at halftime.

Instead of folding and letting the Vikings run away with the win, Hipp led a fierce comeback to cut it to one point late before River Valley came away with a 48-43 win handing Shelby just its second league loss since joining the MOAC in 2018.

But it wasn’t a lack of leadership that led to the loss. And it will be the leadership of Hipp that will help Shelby bounce back as they look forward to a rematch. She will look toward her teammates to help right the ship.

“I trust my teammates a lot,” Hipp said. “I know they are young but they are definitely capable of stepping up. They show it in practice all the time and I know that even if the ball isn’t in my hands that they have the ability to be composed, too. Leadership and composure have to come from Audi and myself as the only two seniors.”

Hipp’s leadership will also push her out of her comfort zone. She will be tasked with doing more scoring than she ever has and more than she is comfortable with.

“I have been on Demi quite a bit because she has that old-school point guard mentality,” Lantz said. “We are trying to get her to look to score more and take shots because she is hands down our best shooter and we want her to pull the trigger. I feel like a true point guard is a playmaker who sets teammates up and it is very difficult to force them to take shots. Demi has an internal battle and I understand it. When she shoots more while also doing those point guard roles, she is going to flourish. We expect a lot out of her and she is delivering with a game face.”

Hipp is having a fine season averaging seven points, 4.3 assists, 3.4 steals and 2.3 rebounds a night. She is shooting 30% from three and a cool 92% from the free throw line, which is good for the best in the MOAC. She leads the league in assists with 34 which is nearly double the player’s total in second place. She also leads the league in total steals with 27.

But she couldn’t tell you any of that.

Humility is the surest sign of strength

Hipp doesn’t know any of her stats. She can hardly tell you how many points she scores on any given night. But she could definitely tell you if her team won or not.

Hipp is the humblest of point guards. Despite her success, the only thing she cares about is how her team has four straight MOAC titles. How they won the first Division II district championship in more than 20 years last season and how they made it to a regional championship game while breaking the single-season wins record with 26.

That is the only thing that matters. Winning and being humble.

“It starts with family first,” Hipp said. “They give me credit when it is deserved and harshness when it is deserved. I hear it from my dad and brother all the time if I have a bad game and especially when I have a good game. My brother, Davey, got a lot of accolades and was a scorer since his freshman year. Me playing with three All-Ohioans along with Mal and Audi, I am perfectly fine with going for the box outs and getting the over-the-back calls and I will just worry about finding the shooters. I’ll take all the assists I can get. You see those averaging 20 points a game and that isn’t me and I am just fine with it.”

Hipp’s brother, Davey, had a highlight-reel career for the Whippets boys’ basketball team. He is the No. 5 all-time leading scorer in Shelby boys basketball history with 1,047 points. He played from 2013-2017 and compiled a career record of 50-43 in four years as a varsity player. He earned just about every individual accolade you could think of.

On the other hand, Demi hasn’t earned a single accolade in basketball in three years. In fact, the Division II District 6 honorable mention honor she received in volleyball this season was the first time she was honored individually in her career aside from being named a wildcard on the Richland 200 list.

She also doesn’t care. What she does care about is she has a 76-11 record as a varsity player with more than half of her senior year still to go. She has been a part of two 20-plus win seasons. If she can lead the Whippets to a big season in the second half, she could leave as the all-time winningest player in program history. But again, it wouldn’t mean anything to her if her team isn’t successful.

“She is so humble and her family is as well,” Lantz said. “You saw it in Davey’s personality. He was a big scorer, but he was so humble and quiet and did what he was asked to do on the court and that can be seen in Demi as well. She isn’t afraid to box out a 6-5 kid if she has to. That right there is why we are successful. I am hoping those accolades fall into her lap this year because without her leadership we aren’t where we are without her here.”

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