Hinton – Gracie Harvey needed 38 points coming into Tuesday night to reach 1,000 for her career.
She instead settled for the consolation of 36 and the win the came with it.
The Summers County all-stater dominated Greenbrier West, connecting on 14 of 32 shots in a 63-37 win for the Lady Bobcats in Hinton.
The play of Harvey proved key but the Bobcats set the tone early with their defense and used it to create a cushion when the Cavaliers threatened. They started by pressuring and denying West and reaped the benefits throughout the evening.
In total Summers held West to 12 of 47 (26 percent) shooting, forcing 26 turnovers.
“We just made them play a little bit faster than they wanted to play,” Summers head coach Rick Blevins said. “I think they were short a guard with an injured knee and that played into the plan as well although we didn’t know it before they got here. But I thought our girls did a good job defensively in the second half. We especially made a lot of good passes. We made a lot of shots had a lot of people score tonight, so we’re feeling pretty good about it.”
The Lady Bobcats were unable to shake West early despite the visitors’ struggles.
A Hannah Sweet 3 and Maddie Fields free throw got the gears churning for West to tie the game at 6-6 before Harvey ran off six straight for Summers.
Leading 14-12 early in the second quarter, Harvey again created distance with a three-point play. Abby Persinger followed with a corner 3 to make it 20-12 but the Cavs again clawed back, using a layup and 3 from Maddie Fields to make it a 24-21 game in favor of Summers with 3:29 to play in the half.
Over the next eight minutes the Lady Bobcats pulled away.
A 21-2 run proved devastating for the visitors who never peeled themselves off the canvas. West turned it over 10 times and shot 1 of 12 from the floor during that stretch.
Harvey was particularly devastating, scoring 12 of her 36 points over the decisive run to compound the Cavaliers’ struggles.
“You know I thought we were alright at halftime,” West head coach Mark Agee said. “We come out in the middle of the third and they went on a seven-point run on us and got up about 15 or 18 and I think that was the changing point for us. It wasn’t that our offense wasn’t working. We were missing layup after layup and missed 3-point shot after three point shot. So when the ball is not going to hole that’s what does it. It wasn’t because our offense wasn’t working. Our defense, we changed it up a little bit. It wasn’t that it wasn’t working for us. It’s just our shots weren’t falling. So again, when the ball is not going in the hole it’s hard to win games.”
The only intrigue the rest of the way was whether or not Harvey would cross the 1,000-point threshold, something she was unable to do Tuesday but will have another chance to do Friday when the Bobcats host PikeView on Friday.
“Sadly we didn’t guard her like we wanted to,” Agee said. “You know, we didn’t keep our arm on her body so they kept throwing the ball over our head to her. Instead of staying with her, we would come up on the ball and it would go over our head. If we just stayed with her, I think we just shut her down a lot better. But she did have a heck of a game. I mean, you can take that away from her. She’s a good ballplayer.”
Persinger joined Harvey in double figures with 17 points in the win.
Preslee Treadway led West with 11 in the loss.
GW: 10 11 9 7 – 37
SC: 14 17 18 14 – 63
Greenbrier West
Preslee Treadway 11, Maddie Fields 17, Brilee Redden 4, Hannah Sweet 3, Lacey Walker 2
Summers County
Gracie Harvey 36, Cheyenne Smith 2, Avery Lilly 6, Abby Persinger 17, Braelyn Farrish 2
