Gallery by Karen Akers
Gardner – Anyah Brown was battling a slump heading into sectional play.
Despite going 2-1 over the final week of the regular season, the PikeView senior had scored just eight points in those three games combined, failing to tally a point in a loss at Summers County.
Slump busted.
On the heels of a 14-point outing against Independence on Tuesday, Brown erupted for a season-high 25 points on 10 of 17 shooting as PikeView secured the Class AAA Region 3, Section 1 title with a 69-37 win over Shady Spring Thursday in Gardner.
The win avenges a home loss to Shady in last year’s sectional championship game.
For Brown it was never a question of if the scoring would come, it was just when. With all-stater Hannah Perdue carrying the load for most of the season Brown stepped up, dishing out five assists and grabbing nine rebounds as well.
“I think it was a confidence thing,” Brown said. “I think I’ve been playing with a little bit of nerves and just the fact that I haven’t been scoring has really been in my mind but tonight I was like ‘If my team plays, I play.'”
What was billed a showdown of area standouts Kierra Richmond and Perdue, came down to the players around the two for different reasons. Richmond exited the game in the third quarter after landing awkwardly on her ankle that she injured several weeks ago and Perdue sat back, feeding Brown and Hannah Harden who had the hot hands all evening.
Still it looked like Richmond would pull her weight and then some early.
The Shady Spring senior drew first blood when she canned a 3-pointer with Kylee Barnes and Braylie Wiseman following with buckets to give Shady a 7-4 advantage. The hosts answered with six straight before Richmond hit on a layup to make it 10-9. A free throw from Brown made it an 11-9 game to close the opening stanza.
Leading 18-17, PikeView made its run. A 3-pointer from Perdue pushed the lead to four and another long ball courtesy of Brown made it 24-18 with a Richmond free throw sandwiched in-between. After a Perdue layup off a steal on the next possession, the game began to tumble away from Shady.
The sequence was a part of a 16-4 run to end the quarter which saw the Panthers take a 34-21 advantage into the break.
“I thought in the second quarter we settled down on the offensive end of the floor and put those easy shots in,” PikeView coach Tracy Raban said. “The first quarter we had some looks underneath the basket that were contested and we just missed that we’ve always been hitting but the second quarter we settled down and we made those shots. They were in that 1-3-1 defense and I thought the back side we could eat it alive and we were able to get in there in the high post and hit the back side and knock down those shots and were able to pull away.”
A 10-0 run out of the half staked PikeView to a 44-21 lead with Richmond exiting when it was 40-21. A hard drive to the bucket resulted in the senior landing awkwardly and exiting for the remainder of the contest. With a regional berth already locked up Shady coach Brandon Bennett elected to sit both Richmond and Braylie Wiseman for the remainder of the contest.
“I think it scared her more than anything because she landed on it kind of awkwardly so that was just a precaution,” Bennett said. “As soon as that happened we decided we’ve got a bigger game on Tuesday and decided to pull Braylie at the same time just in case. We wanted this game, make no mistakes about it but we know that our end goal was not today it’s Tuesday so we decided to get ready for Tuesday.”
Before exiting, Richmond was held to 3 of 10 shooting from the floor, guarded by her good friend Brown for much of the evening. It’s a challenge she asked for and excelled at.
“Honestly I think my strongest point in my game is my defense,” Brown said. “The first time we played them I asked to be on Kierra and ever since then Coach Raban has been like ‘You do really well on Kierra’ so that’s really how it went.”
“When we played up at Shady early in the season I had (Cat) Farmer on her and she had a size difference on her,” Raban said. “Anyah looked at me and said ‘I want her coach.’ I thought she played well on her up there and there was no question prepping this week. I told Anyah it was hers and she wanted it and I told her if we needed to bring Farmer in to give her some relief we could and she said she had it the whole game. I thought she did a tremendous job trying to contain her and it started with her on the defensive end of the floor.”
PikeView was never threatened after Richmond and Wiseman left, outscoring Shady by 19 points in the second half.
Brown’s 25 points led all scorers while Perdue added a quiet 14. Hannah Harden rounded out the double-figure scorers with 12 points. Brooklyn Gibson led the Tigers, who shot just 27 percent from the field, with 15 points in the loss.
“We have to give PikeView credit, they picked it up on the defensive end and they did a heckuva job,” Bennett said. “I thought their intensity picked up and they started hitting some shots. Once their’s went in we started missing and that’s not a great combination, so that hurt us.”
Both team will await the outcome of Friday’s Section 2 championship between Herbert Hoover and Sissonville. PikeView will host the loser on Tuesday while Shady will travel to the winner that same night with a state tournament berth on the line.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
Final
PikeView 69, Shady Spring 37#wvgirlsbb
Panthers are section champs pic.twitter.com/DI9xmyI4rF— Tyler Jackson (@TJack94) February 25, 2022
SS: 9 12 6 10 – 37
PV: 11 23 19 16 – 69
Shady Spring
Kierra Richmond 8, Brooklyn Gibson 15, Kylee Barnes 4, Braylie Wiseman 2, Austyn Barnes 1, Mattea Huffman 2, Kendall Lilly 2, Gracie McAllister 2
PikeView
Hannah Harden 12, Brooke Craft 5, Cat Farmer 4, Hannah Perdue 14, Anyah Brown 25, Riley Meadows 9
3-point goals – SS: 3 (Richmond 1, Gibson 2); PV: 4 (Perdue 2, Brown 2).
