No regrets: Marysville standout JoJo Eberhart finishing out stellar soccer, basketball careers
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
By Michael Rich
mrich@cbussports.com
Marysville’s JoJo Eberhart has been a stalwart on the Marysville girls soccer team, scoring 36 goals and dishing out 29 assists in four seasons. This year, she has 13 goals and 13 assists helping the Monarchs to a 9-8-2 record overall. Photo: John Hulkenberg
As the Marysville girls soccer team prepares for its Division I district semifinal match at Pickerington North on Oct. 25 and the girls basketball season officially begins two days later, JoJo Eberhart has one goal for the next six months – leave no regrets.
That’s because the senior two-sport standout doesn’t plan on pursuing sports at the next level. So, whatever happens this year means all that much more.
“(I) just want to have fun and not have any regrets. That’s just my biggest thing,” said Eberhart, who is a forward in soccer and a guard in basketball.
The girls soccer team, seeded 12th in the district tournament, enters its matchup at the eighth-seeded Panthers at 9-8-2 overall. It’s the most wins for the Monarchs since 2019 – the program’s last district championship. Marysville also won a district title in 2013.
Eberhart has 13 goals and 13 assists for Marysville this season and 36 goals and 29 assists for her career, spanning four seasons.
“She can be very tenacious,” said girls soccer coach Courtney Weikart, whose team defeated ninth-seeded Watterson 4-2 in a second-round match on Oct. 21. “When she sets her mind to something, she’s going to go get it. She’s just very determined. But I think one of the things that’s (true) in both soccer and basketball is that she’s very selfless. She would rather get the assist rather than the goal or the basket. She’s a four-year (varsity) player in both sports, so she’s just an overall stellar athlete.”
Marysville, who is led in goals (14) by senior forward Olivia Brooks, went 1-3-1 in OCC-Cardinal Division play to finish fourth behind co-champions Dublin Jerome, Olentangy and Olentangy Berlin (all 4-1). Brooks also has five assists.
Eberhart has opportunities to play at the next level, particularly in basketball. But she’s ready to focus on her future off the field when she attends college next year.
“I support her wholeheartedly,” girls basketball coach Klarke Ransome said. “She had a handful of opportunities (to play at the next level). I’ve spoken with a handful that were very interested in her services at the next level. She just wants to focus on school and being a student.”
JoJo Eberhart averaged 10.5 points, 5.0 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 3.5 steals per game in helping the Marysville girls basketball team to the program’s first district championship last season. Photo: Michael Rich
Followed in the footsteps
Eberhart followed her sister and brother, Bodie, a 2019 Marysville graduate, into athletics when she was young.
But it’s Taylor who inspired JoJo’s career path. A 2016 Marysville graduate, Taylor got her undergraduate degree in health and rehabilitation science at Ohio State and is pursuing a doctorate in physical therapy at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati.
“I just want to focus on school because I want to be a physical therapist,” said JoJo, who is undecided on where she’ll attend college. “My older sister is going to school for that now and the things that she has to do are just a lot of work.”
JoJo has been playing soccer since she was 2 years old and started basketball not long after that. The time commitment that athletics requires is just too much, she said.
“I just want my focus to be on school because that’s going to be my career in the future,” Eberhart said. “And honestly, I’m just ready for a new start. I’ve played sports my whole life, so I’m kind of ready to leave that behind and start a new chapter once I go to college.”
‘As gifted as anybody’
Eberhart helped the girls basketball program reach new heights last season when it finished 25-3 overall and won a district championship for the first time in program history.
Eberhart, who was first-team all-state and all-district and OCC-Cardinal Division Player of the Year, averaged 10.5 points, 5.0 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 3.5 steals per game for the Monarchs. Marysville fell to Pickerington Central 54-39 in a Division I regional championship.
“JoJo is as gifted as anybody,” Ransome said. “There are not too many girls out there that are as talented or as athletic as she is. I definitely hold her to a high standard because she is special.”
Eberhart played both AAU basketball and club soccer until the last couple of years. Balancing two sports at a high level became too difficult.
Members of the Marysville girls basketball celebrate the program’s first district championship after defeating Reynoldsburg 55-35 on Feb. 25 at Ohio Dominican University’s Alumni Hall. Photo: Michael Rich
“I honestly kept a balance between the two sports my whole life,” she said. “I played club soccer and AAU basketball. I go back and forth. It kind of depends on which season I’m in. When it was club soccer season in the spring, I would like soccer more. But in the winter, I liked basketball more because that’s what I’m playing.
As time went on, basketball became Eberhart’s primary sport.
“I stopped playing club soccer two or three years ago just to focus on basketball because as I got older, it started being too much traveling to try to do both,” she said. “Personally, I think I’m better at basketball. I just liked basketball more than soccer.”
‘She just has a really, really good understanding’
Soccer and basketball marry well together, offering Eberhart a skillset that works well in both sports.
“I think both sports are about spacing and keeping the ball moving trying to find open players,” Weikart said. “I think her (her strength is her) vision and being able to see things in soccer and basketball and being able to relate the two. Just understanding how to get (a defender) to commit and find an open teammate and get her a shot.”
Ransome sees some of those same traits on the basketball court.
“I think JoJo is extremely gifted athletically,” he said. “But she’s also very, very smart. She understands spacing and she can see the whole field or court. She just has a really, really good understanding of the game and where her teammates need to be and when they need to be there. Pair that with the gifts that she has, I think that’s what makes great on the soccer field and on the basketball floor.”
While Ransome is champing at the bit to get the season started, he wants his fall multi-sport athletes to stay focused on the task at hand.
“Basketball season will get here eventually,” he said.
Senior Kasey Duke has six goals and four assists and junior Emma Gilbert has three goals and an assist and are both slated to play basketball this winter.
“I think we’ve developed a culture and a tradition where the expectations are there and we want to continue to build on what we’ve done in year’s past,” Ransome said. “I know (our seniors) want to continue to build on that and take those next steps.”