Senior Aubrey Langdon (11) closes out on a Kings shooter. Photo by Dick Maloney, Sun Sports Correspondent.
Junior Rachel Morgan (10) shoots a layup vs. Kings. Photo by Dick Maloney, Sun Sports Correspondent.
Milford High School senior Violet Shuluga and her coaches, including head coach Matt Tolliver, on left, hold a sign noting her 1,000 career points, while teammates hold similar signs. Photo by Dick Maloney, Sun Sports Correspondent.
Milford High School senior Violet Shuluga, pictured in the front row holding a basketball, with coaches and teammates behind signs noting her feat of scoring 1,000 career points. Photo by Dick Maloney, Sun Sports Correspondent.
Milford coach Matt Tolliver addresses his team during a timeout vs. Kings. Photo by Dick Maloney, Sun Sports Correspondent.
Clermont Northeastern senior Connor Yeager (45, with basketball) broke the 1,000-point barrier Jan. 17, 2025, vs. Blanchester. Photo courtesy Clermont Northeastern Athletic Department.
Her point total counting up and the game clock winding down, Milford High School senior Violet Shuluga was battling time – at least for one night – Jan. 16 vs. Kings on Ted Dixon Court.
Shuluga entered the game with 972 career points, 28 short of 1,000. She had never scored more than 25 in a game, and only eight when the Eagles and Knights met at Kings Dec. 5, 2024. Then, the points started adding up. Thirteen in the first half; nine more in the first 11 minutes of the second half. Five points away, 1:48 remaining; then to 998.
The game well in hand by this point – Milford led 39-20 at halftime – the Eagles had one goal: get the ball to Shuluga. She posted up several times, but Kings’ swarming defense forced bad shots. Finally, with about 20 seconds remaining, Shuluga took matters into her own hands. She received an inbounds pass in the backcourt, dribbled past the timeline and calmly launched a three-point attempt that settled through the net and into history. Her teammates and students rushed the floor.
Officials waved off any remaining time (a couple of seconds). Milford had a 65-38 win on a night that would already be remembered by all involved.
“I thought it was a perfect night, perfect night with everything that was going on,” head coach Matt Tolliver said, referring to the team’s annual Game of Hope event – a fundraiser for The Cure Starts Now Foundation, in honor of former Mount St. Joseph University player Lauren Hill, who died of cancer in 2015.
Fittingly, with teams whose primary colors are red (Milford) and blue (Kings), purple dominated. Players, coaches and fans wore purple shirts with “The Cure Starts Now” logo on the front and #playfor22 (Hill’s number) on the back. Purple balloons and ribbons lined the stands and walls. Milford’s uniforms were white trimmed with purple – almost violet.
“It means a lot to me, especially because tonight was a big night for … our community, just the Game of Hope. It means a lot for us. We’ve been doing it for 10 years, so that was great to do it tonight, and kind of just represents my … gratitude for being able to play every day,” Shuluga said.
Shuluga wasn’t planning to steal the spotlight. Both she and Tolliver admitted they thought the milestone was more likely to be reached Saturday, against McNicholas.
“At halftime, she had 13, and we asked her, ‘If this game gets into a blowout, (do) you want to go for it tonight, or do you want to wait until Saturday?’” Tolliver said. “And she said, ‘Let’s go ahead and get it over.’ You know, this is stressful for a kid. She was going to do it, but … you don’t want it affecting her game overall and everything.
“She deserved it. It was such a big crowd, you know? We don’t get to play in front of the crowds this big that often, so everything about it was just perfect.”
“I was definitely planning on it being next game for sure,” Shuluga said.
That changed in the final 20 seconds.
“I was like … I have to make this,” she said of the shot that put her past 1,000. “I know there’s other games that I could have got it, but … everyone’s here, I might as well get it,” Shuluga said. “I’ve come this far. Just hit this shot. I guess, prepared for this moment for a while.”
Tolliver first noticed that mindset during his first season at Milford, in 2021-2022, when Shuluga was a freshman.
“She’s just a hard cover for teams, and she remains calm,” he said. “Since she was a freshman, the one thing that always stood out was she just calm, full and collected, just a really, really good offensive player.”
The victory gave Milford a 10-3 record (6-3 in the Eastern Cincinnati Conference). Three of those wins came in Florida in late December, but Tolliver said his team had struggled a bit since returning north.
Milford defeated Little Miami by one point, 54-53 Jan. 4, then lost at Lebanon 51-46 Jan. 9 before defeating Anderson 62-28 Jan. 13. A Jan. 11 home game vs. Turpin was postponed.
“We had some tired legs from the trip where we thought the season was over or whatnot, but we’ve regained the way we were playing before Florida, of getting after people. I thought the first half, we played as good as we could play on both sides of the court,” he said.
“There was definitely a little bit of a slump. But I think we figured out our identity again, towards the beginning of the season, we were a defensive team, our offense kind of runs through our defense, so I think we picked that up,” Shuluga said.
The Eagles will likely not win the ECC – Winton Woods is 8-0 (12-0 overall) and beat Milford by 20, 69-49, Dec. 19, 2024. The teams play again in Forest Park Jan. 30. However, Milford is well-positioned for the Division I sectional. Tolliver said his team currently sits third, behind Mason and Mount Notre Dame, in the MaxPreps ranking that will be used to seed teams.
This season, there will be seven divisions for postseason play – an increase from four. Milford is in a pool of 17 teams that includes Colerain, Fairfield, Hamilton, Lakota East, Lakota West, Lebanon, Mason, Middletown, Mount Notre Dame, Oak Hills, Princeton, Seton, Sycamore, Walnut Hills, West Clermont and Western Hills, and will play one of those teams in a district semifinal, which is now the first round, Feb. 18 or Feb. 19.
Brackets will be filled Feb. 2, but that is another day. This night was for two special players – Lauren Hill and Violet Shuluga, who ironically delivered a speech in tribute to Hill before the game, and then posed for photos with Hill’s mom, Lisa, after the game.
“I know some people, like Lauren Hill, she didn’t get the chance to have the full college career that she wanted to, but I’m just grateful that I get to step on the floor every day with all my teammates who love and support me, and some people might not get the chance to do that,” Shuluga said.
Shuluga is fourth all-time on Milford’s girls scoring list, now with 1,024 points. Tammy McCallum (Class of 1992) is first, with 1,380. Nicki Sparks (’93) has 1,283 and Morgan Wolcott (’12) has 1,043.
Two x 1,000
One night after Milford’s Violet Shuluga scored her 1,000th career point, Clermont Northeastern senior Connor Yeager did the same in a 55-36 home win over Blanchester. Yeager is the third-leading scorer in the Southern Buckeye Athletic and Academic Conference at 18.3 points per game, and the leading rebounder at 18.9 per game. He collected his 1,000th career rebound Dec. 19, 2024, at Georgetown.
The Clermont Sun will feature Yeager in an upcoming issue.