Stuart Cramer’s Oshauna Holland shines as Gaston County’s top girls’ basketball player

Since Stuart Cramer High School opened in 2013, the Storm’s athletic programs have tried with varying degrees of success to compete with Gaston County rivals.

But over the past two seasons, Stuart Cramer has completely reversed the trend against the likes of South Point, East Gaston, Forestview, Ashbrook, Hunter Huss and North Gaston.

The Storm’s girls basketball team has emerged as the county’s top team — and guard Oshauna Holland is the biggest reason why.

Just a junior, she’s already the school’s leading career scorer and she’ll likely — assuming good health — leave Cramer as its career leader in virtually every significant statistical category.

Storm coach Carey Pohlman has been the only coach the program has ever had.

“I’m just excited for this year to see how much she’s grown as a player,” Pohlman said of Holland. “She’s gotten better every year and she seems to get better every day.”

The 5-foot-7 Holland has already scored 1,327 points and averages 22.9 points, 7.7 rebounds, 6.0 steals, 5.2 assists and 1.2 blocks per game in her career.

In her freshman year, she averaged 18.1 points, 5.9 rebounds, 5.5 steals, 4.7 assists and 0.8 blocks as the Storm finished 22-6 overall and won the school’s first conference tournament title. As a sophomore she averaged 27.3 points, 9.4 rebounds, 6.5 steals, 5.7 assists and 1.5 blocks as Cramer went 24-6 overall and won both the Big South 3A Conference regular season and tournament titles before making the school’s farthest playoff advance (third round) in history.

This year, Holland has and even higher aspirations.

“Everybody wants to win a state championship,” Holland said. “So that’s the No. 1 goal. Also, I want to get a 2,000-point ball and I want to continue growing as a team.”

Holland’s success has made her one of the top recruits in the region. Wake Forest, Florida Atlantic, UNC Wilmington, Boston College, Elon and others are among the schools that have shown an interest in her.

“I think my commitment will come by the end of this season,” said Holland, who played this past summer for the Winston-Salem-based CP3 Flames AAU team. “I’m still talking to colleges and trying to find the right school.”

Pohlman says Holland’s never-ending pursuit of improving her game is what sets her apart.

For instance, he told her a year ago that she needed to focus on her mid-range shooting and she became proficient in that area.

This past summer, she focused on pushing her range out even farther.

“I think people are going to be surprised at how much better she has become in 3-point shooting,” Pohlman said. “She’s really worked hard on that. But she works on everything that she thinks is a weakness.”