Gallery by Heather Belcher
Hinton – Chad Meador’s Summers County Lady Bobcats have proven this postseason that when they’re down, they’re never out.
Tuesday his squad wrote the latest chapter in a season he hopes has a storybook ending.
Trailing 27-24 late in the fourth quarter of their Class AA Region 3 co-final against No. 2 Mingo Central, the Lady Bobcats scored the last five points of the game and made three key defensive stops down the stretch, winning the game 29-27 in Hinton and advancing to next week’s state tournament at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
With the win the Lady Bobcats secured the No. 1 overall seed in the state tournament and will play No. 8 Frankfort on Wednesday, March 8 at 5:30 p.m.
“The team has put in a lot of work the last three weeks and we kind of defied the odds,” Meador said. “I kind of saw this season ending a little bit different. I did not anticipate hosting the region and I thought we would end our season probably at Chapmanville. But we had a conversation a month ago and at Wyoming East, even though it was an eight-point loss, I felt we grew up a lot. That loss, typically you grow up after a win, but we were able to put ourselves in position to win that game but we were determined at that point we belonged and knew if we kept chugging away and chugging away, good things might happen and listen, 850 people here tonight saw a great game.”
Struggling to score and with Mingo running offense to bleed the clock, hopes of a second consecutive trip to Charleston looked bleak late in the fourth. But as was the case in their sectional championship win at Wyoming East, the little hustle plays made the difference for the hosts.
It started with Sullivan Pivont hoisting a 3 that she was fouled on after Mingo missed a one-and-one attempt at the charity stripe the other way. Pivont made the middle one of the three, grabbed her own offensive board on the final attempt and hit Gracie Harvey who was fouled on a layup attempt and promptly hit both of her free throws to tie the game at 27 with 1:19 left.
“We just had a few possessions,” Mingo head coach Kim Davis Smith said. “A key possession was Pivont getting her own rebound. That was killer. How are we not focused?”
Tasked with protecting the lead, the Summers defense answered, setting up the winning shot.
Liv Meador’s on-ball defense of Mingo all-stater Addie Smith forced the first of two five-second calls in the final minute. setting the stage for Harvey. Out of a timeout, Meador dribbled to the top of the arc, flung the ball over Mingo’s 6-foot-3 forward Jenna Sparks and into the hands of Harvey who hit what ended up being the game-winner.
Here’s the layup from Summers’ Gracie Harvey that proved to be the winner.#wvgirlsbb pic.twitter.com/hRiqYdlvKK
— Tyler Jackson (@TJack94) March 1, 2023
“We were told in the beginning of the year we were going to have to play one of two teams in either Chapmanville or Mingo and it ended up being Mingo, ” Harvey said. “I just knew they wanted revenge from last year with us beating them at their place and we just needed to get it done. I was just praying at halftime that my shots were going to fall and if my shots weren’t going to fall that our defense would step up and other people’s shots would be falling.”
Meador forced her second five-second call on the ensuing possession but a turnover on Summers’ next play gave Mingo the ball with 20 seconds left and an opportunity to score.
Once again the defense stifled the visiting Miners.
Smith was run across from one side of the arc to the other, hoisting a desperation jumper from the left baseline with 2.4 seconds left that missed the mark. Sparks corralled the rebound but wasn’t able to get a shot off in time to tie the game.
That final sequence was indicative of the way the game transpired. Summers shot just 26 percent from the field on 38 attempts while Mingo finished at a 25 percent clip on 40 attempts.
The only multi-possession lead of the game came early when Summers led 7-2 after a layup and a pair off free throws form Harvey and a 3 from Avery Lilly.
Mingo countered with a 9-1 run over the first two quarters to take an 11-8 lead and led 13-12 at the break. The see-saw affair continued throughout the third with the teams tied at 20 heading into the fourth.
There it seemed as though Mingo would squeak out the win after Smith stole a ball from Pivont and nailed a 3 to make it a 25-22 game. Pivont later answered with a layup but Curry responded with her own shot inside the arc to push the advantage back to three.
Five turnovers, fruitless possessions and Mingo’s willingness to burn clock seemed to doom Summers until the missed free throw gave Summers the ball, kicking off the sequence of plays that started with Pivont’s free throws.
“I looked up at the clock at about the three minute mark and thought we were going to have to do something a little different,” Meador said. “I didn’t want to foul immediately so we went to our red package which is basically trap and rotate. We got to the point where it’s not working so we had to trap Smith and the second she passed that’s who we need to foul. I had to think a little harder. The thing I’ve learned is you have to forward think, sometimes even three possessions ahead. We called a timeout and said if this happens, this is what we need to do. It’s like a football coach who calls three plays in the huddle. We went over three scenarios and with this bunch you can do that. They’re led by two outstanding seniors (Liv Meador and Sullivan Pivont) that have been playing together since third grade and what a way to end it here.”
Liv, Coach Meador’s daughter, drew the assignment of defending Smith most of the night with the Lady Bobcats substituting just once. The younger Meador held Smith to 5 of 16 shooting, forcing the two late turnovers in the final minute.
“She’s the head player of their team,” Meador explained. “We knew we needed to shut her down to win this game because she’s an awesome player with a really quick shot. We practiced and knew if we guarded her all the way through we’d get it done. We hedged really well on her. I had to get skinny on screens and we went around screens on the bottom even out of bounds.”
Harvey and Smith led their respective teams with 15 points each and were the only players to score in double figures.
Mingo, which was ranked as high as No. 1 in the AP Poll before dropping to No. 2, finishes its season at 19-4.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
MC: 4 9 7 7 – 27
SC: 7 5 8 9 – 29
Mingo Central
Madisyn Curry 4, Addie Smith 15, Dalaney Grimmett 2, Jenna Sparks 4, Bella Hall 2
Summers County
Avery Lilly 3, Gracie Harvey 15, Abby Persinger 4, Sullivan Pivont 5, Cheyenne Smith 2
3-point goals – MC: 3 (Smith 3); SC: 1 (Lilly)
