After a successful regular season Wyoming East finds itself in a familiar position – ready for a run at another Class AA championship.
After winning the second championship in program history last season, the Lady Warriors make the return trip to Charleston, ready to defend their title. But they’ll do so with a different looking team that the one that walked out of the Charleston Coliseum with the championship trophy hoisted in the air.
Still, the expectation remains the same – make it to Saturday and compete for a title.
“Our goal is to get to Saturday and it always is,” East head coach Angie Boninsegna said. “When you’re blessed to get down there you have to take it game by game to get to Saturday but honestly we haven’t looked past Charleston Catholic. Â We have seen – if Summers County would win that other game we have seen them but we haven’t seen St. Marys but we really haven’t looked past Charleston Catholic. They’ve got some things that they do well and effectively that if we don’t protect the ball they can take advantage of us.”
Coming into the state tournament as the No. 2 seed, East will open its title defense at 7:15 on Wednesday when it matches up with an athletic Charleston Catholic team that fell last year in the Class AA quarterfinals. The Irish are led by junior Annie Cimino, who averages 10.4 points per game. After that Claire Mullens brings an average of 8.3 points and Chloe Clark a 6.7 points per game average.
“I think, on tape, they kind of try to do the same things we do,” Boninsegna said. “They get the ball down the court and defend the whole court. They go through (Annie Cimino) a lot. They look pretty athletic and pretty quick. They run everything through Cimino. She’s a good guard and they have another one in (Aurelia Kirby) that’s pretty good.”
While many of the faces that contributed to last year’s championship season – Sarah Saunders, Skylar Davidson and Daisha Summers – have moved on, the Lady Warriors do bring in a talented crop that has some experience on the state’s biggest stage.
Junior Abby Russell was a first-team all-state and all-tournament selection last season while senior Hannah Blankenship scored 11 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in the title game.
Junior Kayley Bane and Colleen Lookabill were rotational players while Maddie Clark had a breakout game in the semifinals against Petersburg with 15 points on a perfect 5 of 5 showing from the field.
This year the Lady Warriors will bring a new face to the table in freshman guard Cadee Blackburn. She’s started every game for East while Russell, who tore her ACL the day after last year’s win in the title game, has worked her way back.
It’s helped Boninsegna and Co. groom Blackburn with Russell coming off the bench since her return in January.
“Hopefully that will be an advantage that we do have some experience,” Boninsegna said. “Hopefully our freshmen will settle in. (Cadee) Blackburn has had a good year. It’s not often you have someone the caliber of Abby coming off the bench and that helps too because she’ll settle them down. She got a lot of key experience last year – her and Hannah. We’re blessed that Kayley (Bane), Abby and Colleen (Lookabill) were able to get some valuable experience that hopefully will pay off well.”
One thing that remains the same for East is its emphasis on the defensive end of the floor. During last year’s title run the Lady Warriors forced 27 turnovers per game and have hung their hat on their accomplishments on that end of the floor again. They’ve given up 60 points just twice this season and have avoided doing so since the calendar flipped to the new year.
That bodes well in a venue that’s typically unkind to shooting percentages.
“I think that gives us some bit of an advantage,” Boninsegna said. “We always preach that we want to get things started on the defensive end of the floor because you just don’t know how you’re going to shoot. Sometimes you can shoot well but a lot of teams struggle up there. Sometimes it’s nerves, sometimes it’s just a little different than you’re used to. But I think our defense is coming together and should help us.”
East will play Charleston Catholic on Wednesday at 7:15 p.m. in the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center. Should the Lady Warriors win they’ll advance to Friday’s semifinals where they’ll play the winner of Summers County-St. Marys at 9:30 a.m.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
