Garrison off to a hot start with the Bison
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BETHANY -- To say Lindsey Garrison has started her college career on the right foot would be an understatement. Just two weeks into her college career, the Bethany freshman has won two weekly awards, broken a program single-game record and is leading both the Bison and the Presidents Athletic Conference (PAC) in scoring by averaging 21 points per game.
"She's four games into her college career and you would think she's a senior by the way that she's playing," said Bethany coach Brian Sansom.
After scoring 13 points in her college debut, a loss to Muskingum, Garrison went on to score 31 points on just 14 shots in a big 85-35 win over Allegheny.
Those two performances were enough to earn her PAC Player of the Week honors in her very first week of college basketball.
She followed that up by dropping 29 points in an 82-21 win against Penn State New Kensington. In that game she set a new single-game school record by making nine 3-pointers. That performance helped her secure the PAC Rookie of the Week Award on Monday.
Garrison's early success comes as no surprise to Sansom, who watched her play throughout her high school career at nearby Wheeling Park and got a first-hand look at her work ethic this summer.
"Her work ethic is second to none," Sansom explained. "This summer, before she ever started classes here, she would ask me to come down (to the gym) two or three times a week just so she could shoot in the gym. I'd turn on the lights for her and she'd come down and shoot with her dad or sometimes just by herself."
Sansom said Garrison is benefitting from the style of basketball they play at Bethany, but also does not want to understate how much of her success is a product of her hard work.
"This summer she spent a lot of time working on her overall game and was able to catch on pretty quick with our system," Sansom said. "Our system fits shooters so it fits her well and she's been taking full advantage of that."
Anyone who watched Garrison play for the Patriots in high school would not be surprised to see that her sharp-shooting has translated over to the college game, Sansom included.
"I spent a lot of time recruiting Lindsey so I've watched her play a whole lot of basketball and I knew what she was capable of," he said.
As a senior last year, Garrison averaged 19.2 points per game and set the Wheeling Park school record by making 12 3-points in a game against Buckhannon-Upshur. She earned first team All-OVAC and second team All-State honors following the season.
"I'm so happy for her," Park girls coach Ryan Young said. "She is such a hard-working kid. She is an awesome kid to coach. I told coach Sansom 'you're getting a good one' and he found out pretty quickly that he did. It doesn't surprise me. I knew she was going to go there and do well. I was pretty confident that she was going to start and probably be one of the leading scorers."
Sanson said getting Garrison to Bethany was a bit of a breakthrough for the Bison, who have always tried to recruit the Ohio Valley's top talent.
"When I reached out to her initially, I don't know if there was a ton of interest to begin with because I don't know if she wanted to stay so close to home," Sansom recalled. "I think initially she wanted to look a little further away and then we brought her down for a visit and as her senior year started going on, I think she just got comfortable with us and our program. When that phone rang and she said she was coming to Bethany, boy that was a great night.
"We've tried to recruit the Ohio Valley and just haven't had a lot of success. This was really our first kid from Park that we've been able to get and we want to continue trying to get the top players out of the Ohio Valley. We hope that having Lindsey here shows people in the area that it's okay to stay close to home."
Garrison is not the only local flavor in the Bison's starting lineup, however, as she starts alongside a pair of former Cameron Dragons in seniors Courtney Walker and Kelsie Meintel.
The Bison's most recent game was a 77-43 win over Penn State-Altoona on Saturday that pushed their record to 3-1 to start the season. Bethany will begin PAC play on Wednesday and Sansom hopes this will be a breakout season for the Bison in the conference standings.
"We're young but we have some talent and I think we have the right mindset," he said. "I think we should be one of the top four teams in the conference."
Along with Garrison, Walker and Meintel, the Bison also have last season's PAC Newcomer of the Year in sophomore guard Makenzee Mason.
In the previous five seasons under Sansom, the Bison topped out at 13 wins in 2018-19 and reached 12 wins two other times. The early results are very promising this season, however. As a team, Bethany is averaging 78.3 points per game and giving up just 44.
Sansom attributed the jump to the players really taking ownership of the team and buying into the process of getting better.
"It all started in the summer with the players all buying into how they get prepared to play and then a change in our preseason to all of our stuff being player-led," Sansom explained. "The players really bought into the environment and the standards we were trying to set.
"It's been fun to watch," he continued. "That's when a program becomes successful, when the players understand the common goals and set the standards. That's when you start seeing the wins and I think that's what you're seeing with us so far this year."
Sansom said winning has only reinforced that what the players are doing is working and hopes to see that success continue when they open conference play on Wednesday on the road against Franciscan. The Bison's conference home-opener will be Dec. 4 against Grove City College.