Gallery by Heather Belcher
Charleston – Summers County head coach Chad Meador was confident in what his defense could bring to Charleston.
It was the offense that concerned him.
His fears were all realized.
The Lady Bobcats committed 10 first-quarter turnovers Wednesday, falling into a 10-point deficit they never recovered from in a 47-32 loss to St. Marys in the Class AA state quarterfinals at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
Their first time playing on the Coliseum floor since 2019, the Lady Bobcats inexperience showed from the jump as they mustered just two points on 1 of 7 shooting from the field in the opening quarter.
“This basketball team outside of my lone senior (Maggie Stover) has never stepped foot on this floor,” Meador said. “That does make a difference. You get programs like Wyoming East and Parkersburg Catholic and some of these programs that have been around for awhile. This stuff doesn’t bother them. It did affect us. But I thought we overcame that. We overcame that in the second quarter, they outscored us in the third but we adjusted at halftime. We adjusted fairly well – perhaps not soon enough.”
Trailing 17-8 heading into the break, the Lady Bobcats found an answer on offense in the third. Sophomore center Gracie Harvey scored 10 of her team-high 15 points out in the third quarter, helping Summers keep pace. Trailing by 14, she answered with six straight for her team but St. Marys had an answer each time with a 3-pointer and a three-point play from Josey Moore and Zoe Davis fending off the run.
“We just stuck two shooters in the corner and dared them to stay in the paint or go out,” Meador said. “We used high ball screens on the point guard and rolled the post and gave it to these two (Harvey and Stover) here. Man on man, just throw it up and see what happens. That’s pretty much it.”
Harvey and Davis traded buckets at the end of the quarter, resulting in a 34-20 advantage for the Lady Devils.
With the game nearly out of hand the Bobcats found a spark courtesy of freshman Avery Lilly.
After Harvey split a pair of free throws to open the fourth, Lilly grabbed the offensive rebound, nailed the stick back and was fouled, finishing the play at the line. She followed it up with a steal and was fouled again on a shot attempt, proving true on both ensuing free throws.
“I was thinking that I didn’t want to leave anything on the court and I love this team,” Lilly said. “I love our senior and I didn’t want her to go out and feel like I didn’t give my best effort. I was able to think a little more positive and it just kind of happened.”
A floater from Liv Meador capped an 8-0 run to open the fourth, getting the Lady Bobcats back within six at 34-28 at the 6:17 mark. The good news for Summers was is it was able to hold St. Marys to a single field goal the rest of the way.
The bad news was it sent St. Marys to the line 13 times in the final frame on an afternoon where the Lady Devils converted on 22 of their 25 free throw attempts, going 11 of 13 from the line in the final quarter.
“We don’t practice free throws in practice. We never have.” St. Marys forward Zoe Davis laughed.
“Let me tell you something, it’s called a free throw, right?” St. Marys coach Fred King said. “Why do you have to practice it? It’s free. Free throws are here and here (motioning to heart and head). You practice that at the summer time. You’ve got all summer … The point I’m making is they did that on their own. I think I told this to (MetroNews) – this year in the fourth quarter we shot 145 foul shots and made 111. That’s 72 percent in the fourth quarter.”
Summers struggled from the field, shooting 25 percent (11 of 44) and nailing its last field goal at the 4:17 mark. Outside of her third quarter explosion, St. Mary’s effectively kept the ball out of Harvey’s hands, limiting her to five points combined across the other three quarters.
“These girls understand the total concept of a matchup zone,” King said. “We started – they hadn’t played much man in their careers – so we started the first six weeks pounding man principles because if you play man principles, you can do anything. I told them toward the end of the year ‘girls, we’re going to start playing matchup zone.’ It’s very difficult because you don’t know who’s guarding you. They talk well, they bump out when they’re supposed to and very seldom do they get an open shot. When they did they were wore out. But the post play, we knew that (Harvey and Stover) were going to be an issue. So we kind of halfway’d them so they couldn’t actually get the ball in there. When they did we walled it off.”
Harvey finished the game with 15 points and 12 rebounds while Lilly added nine points.
Zoe Davis led St. Marys with 17 points while sister Addie pitched in 13. Breanna Price rounded out the double-figure scorers with 10.
St. Marys advances to Friday’s Class AA semifinal round where it will play the winner of Wyoming East-Charleston Catholic.
Summers finishes the season 16-8 and will graduate one senior, returning the core of its team.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
