Gallery by Heather Belcher
Chad Meador knew last season would be his final one as the head coach at Summers County and he made it memorable by guiding the Lady Bobcats to the Class AA state championship game.
They ultimately came up short and Meador stepped down, yielding to his assistant Rick Blevins. With a good chunk of that runner-up team still intact the hope is they’ll be able to cross that hump this year.
Leading the way is a two-time all-state selection in Gracie Harvey who will man the center spot and extend defenses with her shooting ability. She’s flanked by the athletic and talented Abby Persinger. The third returning starter will be Avery Lilly.
The retuning players aren’t what worry Blevins and it’s why he’s making an effort to address some of the shortcomings that plagued the team last year.
“I think we’re gonna have a good team,” Blevins said. “Obviously, we had great players last year. Abby Persinger and Cheyenne Smith return too. All of those kids played a lot of minutes last year. And then we’re just trying to develop some depth at this point. We’ve got a lot of young kids we’re playing. We’ll be playing a freshman too. So we’re going to be playing a bunch of sophomores and a few a few juniors. I think what I’m trying to do is just develop some depth. Last year there were times when we just got rundown, like in the state championship game. We subbed one player for about the last four minutes of the first half and then we didn’t sub again until under two minutes to play and we subbed one player.
“So we need to have more depth than that. If we’re fortunate enough to get to the state tournament it will be three days in a row for us. So that would be a tough assignment for five kids or six. So we’ve just got we gotta develop. Our region too, it’s really strong. Wyoming East, Mingo Central and Chapmanville is being overlooked a little bit for some reason. Shoot, they might end up being the best team in the region. They got a lot of players back and they added some more. So they’re really good, but we’re just focusing on us at the moment. Just trying to get better and develop a little depth like I said.”
The question for Summers is how it will fill the holes left behind by Liv Meador and Sullivan Pivont, a pair of graduates who did most of the ball-handling last year.
“We have a kid who transferred in from Bluefield, Melania Hayes who is a junior,” Blevins said. “She’s pretty good. She’s pretty good handler and very fast. We also have Braelyn Farrish, who’s a sophomore. She played loose and played a lot of JV point guard for us last year. And then we have Avery Lilly, who could play the one if we need her to. So we’re gonna be okay. At this point. I’m not too worried about it.”
Having had a taste of the highest success and progressed each of the last two years, Blevins and Co. aren’t shying away from title expectations. They never do in Hinton. They’ll have the schedule to push them with Mingo Central, Chapmanville, Wyoming East, Greenbrier West and PikeView all on the slate.
“Well, you know, that’s that’s our hope,” Blevins said. “That’s everybody’s goal – to get there and win the state championship. You know, only one team gets to do that. But yeah, I mean, that’s our goal. That’s always going to be the goal. We know there’s a lot to do. We’ve got a lot of difficult games on the schedule and that’s intentional. We want to be battle tested when we when we start postseason play. So the only way you can do that is make a tough schedule.”
