Gallery by Tina Laney
Hinton – Summers County junior Abby Persinger had an inconsistent afternoon Saturday.
Hosting regional foe Chapmanville, she went to the bench with 3:51 to play in the first half, saddled with three fouls. She didn’t re-enter the game until the fourth quarter, missing nearly 14 minutes of game time.
The final minute of the game was where she made her mark.
With 1:02 left in the contest, Persinger scored on a layup and completed the three-point play with a free throw, breaking a 42-42 tie and ultimately delivering the Class AA No. 2-ranked Lady Bobcats a 48-42 over the No. 9-ranked Tigers in Hinton.
Persinger’s beeline to the bucket nearly didn’t happen.
Chapmanville, which trailed by 10 points heading into the fourth quarter, went into its pressure defense and found success with it forcing nine turnovers in the final stanza. On one of the occasions Summers broke it, Persinger, who had another open lane to the bucket, tried to throw over the middle to no success.
She almost nearly tried it again on the decisive possessive but a voice to her right, much like a cartoonish angel, prompted her otherwise.
“So I was rushing, definitely rushing, trying to get points on the board,” Persinger said. “I actually wasn’t gonna even take the ball in and I heard Coach Blevins yelling at me ‘Take it, take it in!’ and then I took it in and I was like, ‘Oh shoot, I gotta make this!’ and a lot of times when I miss I get in my head. I was even thinking like, ‘Don’t miss don’t miss!’ and I feel like a lot of times when I miss it’s because I’m thinking like that. But I wasn’t in my head. I was just focused on the square and trying to get the ball in the basket and win this game for our team.”
As much as Persinger, who finished with a team-high 16 points, ultimately helped decide the game, the rest of the Bobcats held down the fort when she was relegated to the bench. Though it took time in game where offense was limited.
Summers roared to an 8-0 lead less than three minutes into the game with a trio of buckets from Gracie Harvey creating a cushion.
Haley Fleming put Chapmanville on the board at the 4:36 mark but buckets from Jaelyn Boone and Abby Persinger extended the advantage to 10 points at the 3:12 mark of the first quarter.
It proved to be Summers’ last field goal for six minutes with Persinger snapping the skid at the 5:03 mark of the second quarter. The drought ultimately proved harmless though as the visitors from Logan County still trailed 16-10 at that point.
It summarized a half in which the Tigers hit on just 6 of 21 field goal attempts (29 percent) with 12 of those attempts coming from behind the arc.
“The shooting percentage was abysmal,” Chapmanville head coach Kristina Gore said. “The ball has to go into the basket to win. But I was more frustrated with our box outs. We had a really poor game against Sissonville boxing out and we had a coming to Jesus but I guess we’re going to have to go to Jesus again to figure out how to put a body on somebody and move them out of the lane. Just because you might be taller than somebody it doesn’t mean that the ball’s going to land in your hands. Genetics don’t play a factor in basketball. It’s who wants it more. When we applied pressure and followed the gameplan we were successful but when we didn’t and wanted to be lazy we allowed them to get good looks and allowed Abby Perisnger to get into her midrange game and I believe she’s the most underrated player in double-A. When she’s in the game she’s special.”
A layup and a 3-pointer from Jaiden Mahon helped Chapmanville cut the deficit to a point with Persinger’s stint on the bench following almost immediately.
Clinging to a 16-15 lead, the Bobcat offense caught fire by Saturday’s standards. A 9-2 Summers run with all points coming courtesy of Harvey and Boone sent the Bobcats into the half up 25-17.
Buckets from Fleming and Alaira Evans made it a 25-21 game just over two minutes into the second half. But with Persinger still on the bench, role players Cheyenne Smith and Braelyn Farrish stepped up.
Smith converted on a free throw and later a layup with Boone adding a layup to make it 30-21. Farrish added to the 7-0 run that made it 32-24 and eventually 36-26 after three quarters.
Teetering, the Tigers rebounded and roared back, ripping a 15-2 run over the first 5:31 of the quarter to take a 41-38 lead.
From there Persinger took the Bobcats home, scoring seven of the game’s final 10 points.
“They gave us a little bit of trouble there for about three or four straight positions and we finally figured out how to get through it,” Summers head coach Rick Blevins said. “Which I didn’t know if they were gonna be able to or not but we finally figured that out. Once we got ready to get to it we were able to get good shots. The one that Persinger made on the fast break, we threw it out to her and she came down the sideline and like I told before I told her you got to go to the basket. She went straight to it and she can finish man. She can really finish and that kid fouled her and she made two foul shots and that was a huge, huge point in the game for us. We tried to get her the ball anytime we can in that situation. But she’s something else. She’s really athletic.”
It was a frustrating ending for Gore’s Tigers who shot 13 of 26 (50 percent) inside the arc but finished 3 of 22 (14 percent) from behind it. Those troubles were compounded by losing 28-20 on the boards despite a size advantage with Summers grabbing 12 offensive rebounds to Chapmanville’s 5.
“We found a little bit of a rhythm there and Alaira was attacking the basket,” Gore said. “We were finding her and we were getting up into people causing them to panic a little bit. That is their weakness this year – their guard play and I feel like we should’ve exploited a lot more than we did today. We dug ourselves a hole. We had two starters on the bench in the first half – one of them because they wanted to be there and one of them because of foul trouble and that hurt us. You can’t come and play on the road against the No. 2 team in the state and dig a double-digit hole. We’re the most talented team when it comes to finding ways to lose.”
Evans led all scorers with 19 points on 7 of 17 shooting, missing all six of her 3-point attempts.
Persinger led Summers with 16 while Harvey added 15.
Avery Lilly scored just one point for the Lady Bobcats but racked up 10 assists in the win.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
C: 10 7 9 16 – 42
SC: 13 12 11 12 – 48
Chapmanville
Alaira Evans 19, Jaiden Mahon 8, Haley Fleming 6, Brooke Christian 7, Daizi Farley 2
Summers County
Gracie Harvey 15, Cheyenne Smith 5, Avery Lilly 1, Abby Persinger 16, Jaelynn Boone 9, Braelyn Farrish 2