Salem’s Reese Davidson-Chuck goes in for a layup against Crestview's Myer Miller at the Columbiana County Classic on Sunday night. (Special to the Journal/Gary Leininger)

LISBON — Salem’s Reese Davidson-Chuck led the red wave.

She scored 19 points, including her team’s final seven, in a 56-55 girls victory at the 38th Columbiana County Classic on Sunday night.

Davidson-Chuck didn’t realize the red jersey lineup with twin Rylee, and Beaver Local’s Lora Reeder, Tori Druschel and Calli Sorge was most effective.

“I just went out there and played,” Reese Davidson-Chuck said.

She claimed MVP honors for the winning team, hitting four three-pointers that all came at key times.

“I shot some of them, but a lot of them don’t go in,” she said.

Davidson-Chuck said the Quakers played well with their new teammates from Beaver Local.

“We never played them,” she said. “I know one of them because I work with her (Lora Reeder at the Lisbon Dairy Queen).”

Columbiana’s Ellie Venezia added 10 points.

Crestview’s Luvrain Gaskins topped the home team with a game-high 23 points. Heartland’s Rachel Reynolds added 16 points and East Liverpool’s Cate Davis nine. United’s Allyson Lacey had a nice floor game.

The away team fell behind 13-1 in the opening 7 1/2 minutes. Venezia and Reese Davidson-Chuck led the comeback.

Reese Davidson-Chuck scored 11 points, including three straight three-pointers, and Venezia had seven points to give the away team a 24-18 lead with 5:24 to play in the first half.

Columbiana’s Ava Heinrich made a three-pointer and Venezia added a jumper at the buzzer for a 31-25 halftime lead.

Their second-half lead got as high as six points at 49-43 in the second half, but the away team managed only seven points in the final 11 minutes, all by Reese Davidson-Chuck.

Reynolds and Crestview’s Myer Miller banked in three-pointers and Lacey and Reynolds followed with layups to put the home team ahead, 53-50, with 3:33 remaining.

Then Reese Davidson-Chuck took over, scoring on a fastbreak layup, hitting a free throw and then coverting a conventional three-point play off an offensive rebound at the 1:27 mark for a 56-53 lead.

Reynolds had a layup off an assist from Lacey to cut the deficit to 56-55 with 67 seconds remaining. The away team held the ball and ran out the clock.

“It was fun and was good,” Reese Davidson-Chuck said.

Game notes

• The Davidson family has captured MVP awards in four of the last six Columbiana County Classics.

Reese’s sister, Allee, started the run in 2018, followed by cousins Ellie Davidson in 2019 and Abbie Davidson in 2023.

• The home team had only eight players on the roster. Twice they had six players on the court.

• Gaskins made two three-pointers early in the second half. She made only one three-pointer all season.

“Coach let me shoot threes if I wanted,” she said. “My team needed me in the post. I needed to be in there rebounding rather than shooting outside.”

• Davidson-Chuck was surprised that Canton South beat Crestview in the Division V district final.

“I was very surprised,” she said. “I thought for sure Crestview was going to win.”

Salem lost to Crestview 49-36 on Dec. 28 and beat Canton South 51-50 in overtime on Feb. 5.

• Gaskins said it took a while to recover from the season-ending loss.

“I was depressed,” she said. “I was so sad. It’s a tough way to end my season. But that is how things happen sometimes.”

• Davidson-Chuck was the Eastern Buckeye Conference Player of the Year.

“I thought I had a shot, but there are a lot of good girls in the EBC,” she said.

She plans on furthering her studies Kent State-Salem.

• Gaskins will be playing basketball at Bethel University, an NAIA program in Indiana.

It’s a 4 1/2-hour drive and she’ll go off to college in August.

AWAY: 31-25–56

HOME: 25-30–55

AWAY SCORING: Ellie Venezia (Columbiana) 3-3-10, Ava Heinrich (Columbiana) 2-0-5, Taylor Chapman (Leetonia) 1-0-2, Myleigh Jackson (Wellsville) 1-0-3, Bella Poppelriter (Wellsville) 2-0-5, Calli Sorge (Beaver) 0-0-0, Tori Druschel (Beaver) 2-0-4, Lora Reeder (Beaver) 3-0-6, Reese Davidson-Chuck (Salem) 6-3-19, Rylee Davidson-Chuck (Salem) 1-0-2. TEAM TOTALS: 21-70, 6-11: 56.

HOME SCORING: Luvrain Gaskins (Crestview) 10-1-23, Cate Davis (East Liverpool) 3-0-9, Rachel Reynolds (Heartland) 7-1-16, Michaela Farson (Lisbon) 0-0-0, Allyson Lacey (United) 1-0-2, Myer Miller (Crestview) 1-0-3, Bailey McKenzie (United) 1-0-2, Camryn Cody (United) 0-0-0. TEAM TOTALS: 23-50, 2-2: 55.

Three-point goals: Away 8-36 (Reese Davidson-Chuck 4, Venezia, Heinrich, Poppelriter), Home 7-23 (Davis 3, Gaskins 2, Reynolds, Miller).