Gallery by Heather BelcherĀ
New Richmond – If Wyoming East High School is the house of horrors for Mingo Central then Cadee Blackburn is the boogeyman.
Blackburn netted a career-high 37 points, carrying the East offense in a 61-40 win over the Miners Tuesday in New Richmond.
The feat was nothing new for Blackburn, who surpassed the 30-point mark for the fourth time in her career and second time in the last two games. It was a story Mingo had seen before, yielding 24 second-half points to the all-stater when the two teams played at East last year.
She finished Tuesday’s contest 14 of 23 from the field (61 percent) with five treys.
“I think that she did get in a rhythm,” East head coach Ryan Davidson said. “And I don’t care if it’s her or Maddie (Clark) or who it is – if they’re knocking down shots then we’re gonna go to that person. It doesn’t matter who it is. Tonight, it was her. Next week, it may be somebody else. But whoever is feeling it, that’s who we’re gonna go to. That’s why you have a team.”
Ranked No. 1 in the latest AP Poll, the defending state champion Lady Warriors struggled to find offense outside of Blackburn. But she was efficient, scoring seven of East’s 14 first-quarter points to help the hosts to a 14-10 advantage after a quarter, nailing a 3 right before the end of the frame.
She carried that momentum into the second quarter where she carried the scoring load. All 16 points scored by East in the quarter came from her as she went 6 of 10 from the floor in the frame. The outburst combined with a seven-turnover performance in the quarter from Mingo catapulted East to a 30-20 halftime lead that stood at 13 before an Addie Smith 3.
“Maybe we provide her motivation?” Mingo head coach Kim Davis-Smith said of Blackburn. “I don’t know that at (Mingo) or at The Greenbrier last year that she had that many points, you know? I think that she’s a very self-motivated player and everybody’s out to prove who they are and who their team is. It’s just kind of like starting over. We’ve had such a break in our practice due to weather. But I don’t know. I just think it’s her, Ā she’s very streaky player when she’s on, she’s on and there’s a little street cred in the game so that’s probably for her maybe what it is. Ā But yeah, 24 last year, 37 this year. We know every play that they run, we know every out-of-bounds play. I don’t know.”
Mingo chipped at the lead, getting buckets form Delaney Grimmett and Gianna Akers to trim the deficit to seven with five minutes to play in the third. But East again halted the momentum, getting a layup from Charleigh Price and another 3 from Blackburn.
A 3 from Kyndal Lusk and a layup from Blackburn took the sting out of a pair of Smith 3s in the final two minutes.
In the fourth quarter the Lady Warriors cut the head off the snake.
They barraged Smith with traps and double teams in the final frame, leading to eight turnovers and a 1 of 8 (13 percent) clip from the field over the final eight minutes.
“We started doing a little more and we blitzed a little bit,” Davidson said. “Really that wasn’t by design. We just gave the girls the freedom to pick their spots. We were having trouble in the first half when we did some of that. But our backside wasn’t rotating over so they were getting wide open looks. Second half, I thought our help-line defense got way better. Those little down passes weren’t there like they were there before, so they had to skip it all the way across. And that’s why a couple of them ended up in the second row.”
The final frame was an eruption point for Mingo which finished with 22 turnovers and had shot north of 40 percent from the field in the first 24 minutes. East fared little better with 16 turnovers but few of them were of the live-ball variety with Mingo notching just four steals. In contrast the Lady Warriors generated 12 steals, leading to transition opportunities.
“The style of play is always a factor and the fourth quarter obviously plays a factor,” Davis-Smith said. “The physicality and yeah, we did have a bunch of empty possessions with turnovers, 100 percent. That was the difference in the game. I mean, it was. We have new players in different roles in different positions right now. I’m actually pleased with our effort out here today. I think our effort inside – of course we let Blackburn get loose and we know when she’s hot, she’s hot. She’s a good player. I don’t know why we let her to shoot wide open. No one lets Addie shoot free shots, you know what I mean? Two and three people run at her. I just think the physicality of the game, we just let it wear us down some. But this team is young. I have really one starter that’s played big minutes.”
Smith led Mingo with 20 points on 7 of 16 shooting, hitting on 6 of 9 treys.
No other player finished in double figures for East though Maddie Clark did dish nine assists to go with six points. The two teams will meet again Monday at Mingo, a place East hasn’t won before since Davis-Smith took the job.
MC: 10 10 15 5 – 40
WE: 14 16 17 14 – 61
Mingo Central
Delaney Grimmett 10, Gianna Akers 8, Addie Smith 20, Jeanna Bradford 2
Wyoming East
Maddie Clark 6, Cadee Blackburn 37, Abi Baker 6, Alivia Monroe 2, Gabby Cameron 2, Kyndal Lusk 6, Charleigh Price 2