Four years after leaving Mineral Ridge, Matt Cluse has returned to Weathersfield as the Rams’ head girls basketball coach.
The Ridge head coach from 2016 to 2021, Cluse spent time after his departure as an assistant on Aaron Pounds’ staff at Howland, which he said was a “great experience” and one that led him back to the Rams.
“Super excited,” Cluse said of taking over the program. “I just needed to take a little break, get my mind set on what my goals were moving forward … and thought it was time to get back into a head coaching role again.”
Cluse succeeds Amy Harrison, who led the Rams to a 39-8 record over the past two seasons, as well as a share of the Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference (MVAC) Scarlet Tier title in 2024, their first league title in nearly 30 years,and a flawless 14-0 run to the outright championship last season.
Many of the key contributors from both of those teams, which featured numerous underclassmen rotational players, are back this year. But one major piece is not.
As a senior, Ava Hulett, the first girls athlete in Mineral Ridge history to win the Trumbull County Player of the Year award, averaged 18.2 points, 10.3 rebounds and 3.5 steals per game, all team-high marks that illustrate just how difficult it would be for the Rams to replace her production. Cluse, however, figured it would be best if they did not focus too much on that and, instead, reorient the team going into a new season.
“It’s always tough. She was a phenomenal player. Ava did it all. She’s probably one of the most well-rounded athletes Mineral Ridge has ever seen,” Cluse said. “But for us, it wasn’t really about replacing her; it’s about completely changing what our mindset is as a team – not really worrying about the points or who’s scoring the points. It’s about playing defense and letting the points come to us from the defensive end. I don’t want to put the pressure on anybody. Of course, Sullivan [Sandy], we’re going to rely on her to score some of our points, but the big thing for us is, I don’t think we’re going to need to score 50, 60 points every night. We’re going to roll our hat with defense.”
In the Rams’ season opener Monday, the defense was certainly on display, as Ridge limited Lowellville to 25 points in a blowout win, the fourth quarter for which Cluse said many of his varsity players sat. Sandy, Mineral Ridge’s second-leading scorer each of the past two seasons behind Hulett, led the way on both ends of the floor Monday, finishing the night with 22 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, and 5 steals.
Cluse said he expects Sandy, as well as Gianna Gilbert, one of Ridge’s two seniors, to be the heart of the team this season.
“She’s a phenomenal basketball player. She can do it all,” Cluse said of Sandy. “What we’ve been stressing this year is, get your offense really kicking off your defensive end, and she’s picked it up. We’ve seen a lot over the summer, and that first game, I know she scored 22, but what people don’t see in the stats is she had probably seven, eight deflections. … So we’ve got her really working hard on both ends and floor, and that’s going to translate into our offense.”
“Of course, this ship sails with our senior Gianna Gilbert,” Cluse continued. “She’s taken the role as the leader of this team on the court and off the court. Our girls had team breakfast together today, and she leads that, takes care and controls those things. So we’re gonna kind of run with her a little bit on the leadership role, and she’s taking to that role real well.”
Cluse said that, in addition to Gilbert and Sandy, he will rely on a number of players as part of what he believes can be a deep rotation this year. Brystal Mills and senior Kelcee Dye, the latter of whom had spent a few seasons away from basketball, will be regulars in the post, while the likes of Kylee Molnar, Kadence Conway and Savannah Turek are expected to be “big” for the Rams this year.
One of the more underrated and unexpected parts of the Rams’ rotation, though, may be Tomlyn Sandy, Sullivan’s sister.
“Most people aren’t going to know her name. She had very limited minutes last year at the varsity level, but this summer, she came out and she took her role of playing defense to a next level,” Cluse said. “We told her, ‘You got to be on lockdown,’ and she’s running with it. So we feel really good about her on the defensive end. And then on the offensive end, she’s just been lighting up threes. You can’t leave her unguarded.”
After taking over a program coming off back-to-back league titles, Cluse said he hopes to keep things rolling in that regard at Mineral Ridge. But he admitted that he and the Rams, who are without a district final appearance this century, have some postseason ambitions they would like to realize, too.
“I think the bigger picture for some of my staff and, of course, some of these girls that have been on the team for a couple years, is, what do we do next? What’s the next move for this team and this program?” Cluse said. “Getting into the districts and trying to compete for a district championship, I think, is the biggest goal for this team. They’ve kind of struggled lately with that. So I would love to see us compete for the league, and that’s a great victory for us, if we do, but I think the big picture for us is, what do we do when tournament time comes?”
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