Charleston – Of Kadie Colebank’s Class A single-game state tournament record 25 rebounds, she saved the most important for last.
With six seconds left Colebank grabbed an offensive rebound off a free throw miss, was fouled on the stick back attempt and nailed both free throws as No. 6 Tucker County defeated No. 3 Tug Valley 46-45 in a Class A quarterfinal Tuesday morning at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
“My whole goal this year was to be a better rebounder,” Colebank said. “I promised a coach of mine I’d be the best rebounder in the state of West Virginia and I just took that into this game and tried to grab every board that came my way.”
After trading 8-0 runs in the third and fourth quarter, the game came down to the wire with Tug Valley’s Audrey Evans nailing a go-ahead 3-pointer from the corner with 19 seconds left. After the inbound, Tucker’s Jayden Kuhn bolted the length of the court to the basket where she was fouled, missing the front end of a one-and-one. Colebank grabbed the ensuing rebound and was fouled, scoring the winning points.
Evans’ 3-pointer was one of the lone bright spots shooting-wise for the defending champion Panthers who finished 5 of 31 from deep and 11 of 73 from the field overall.
“Our shooting percentage was not very good,” Tug head Coach Clyde Farley said. “We missed a bunch of shots we normally make. It was one of those games. It felt like times we could hardly throw it in the ocean but we sure played hard. We cut it down and we had a shot, but it wasn’t meant to be. It’s a hard loss but we’re going to accept, we’re going to move on and we’ll be fine.”
Colebank finished with 16 points to go along with her 25 rebounds, breaking the previous record of 23 held by Donna Joplin (Matewan, 1984), Christy Cooper (Circleville, 1987) and Riley Fitzwater (Gilmer County, 2016).
Kaylea Baisden led Tug Valley with 17 points while Evans notched a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
Tucker County advances to Thursday’s Class A semifinal where it will play the winner of River View-Cameron at 11:15 a.m.
