After 13 weeks of regular season and sectional play, the final hurdle en route to a state tournament berth has arrived on the girls basketball side.
Locally there are nine teams across four classes hoping to walk out on the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center floor when state tournament play begins next week.
Class A
Greenbrier West at River View, Wednesday at 7 p.m.
A younger team, Greenbrier West earned the No. 2 seed in its section, defeating Meadow Bridge to earn a spot in the sectional championship game where it fell to Webster County last week.
Now the Cavaliers hit the road to face River View, a team that made it to the state tournament last season. There is some familiarity between the two teams though as they met twice this season with River View coming away with both contests.
The first was a 53-48 win at Greenbrier West on Jan. 10, immediately after the Raiders exited a quarantine. The second took place in Bradshaw and wasn’t nearly as close with the Raiders winning 66-47.
The Raiders boast size and experience to combat a West team that rosters just two seniors.
“We’ve had four quarantines this year and (the first game) was right after one where we played them on a Monday,” River View Gehrig Justice said. “We overlooked them. Last year we beat them by 35 or 40 points and we looked at the scores early. Our girls weren’t mentally ready and the freshman they have (Preslee Treadway), she’s a good player. She made a difference for them and (Greenbrier West coach) Mark (Agee) runs about 10 or 12 girls at you and makes you play hard. When we were up there he caught us by surprise and we weren’t in shape. We battled and found a way to make it happen.”
The Raiders are led by junior Haylie Payne who averages 15.1 points per game.
James Monroe at Webster County, Wednesday at 7 p.m.
For the second year in a row James Monroe dropped a heartbreaker against River View and now draws the task of finding a way to upset Sydney Baird and the Highlanders of Webster County.
That didn’t come to fruition last year but the Mavericks now have a legitimate star in center Adyson Hines who can score from anywhere on the floor. Her best game of the season came against River View when she scored 25 points, adding a double-double to her ledger. She enters the contest averaging 12.9 points and 11.8 rebounds per game but what could tip the scales is the play of the players around her.
Haley Hunnicutt, the team’s leading scorer failed to find a rhythm in the sectional loss as she spent most of the evening in foul trouble.
On the opposite side the task of stopping Baird, already a first-team all-state selection, is an enormous one because of the threat she poses not only as a scorer but as a distributor when teams key in on her.
“I was able to go down and watch them play (against Greenbrier West) and she’s so smooth,” James Monroe coach Mike Hines said. “The biggest thing when you watch her play is she don’t force nothing. She lets all of the game come to her. She scores 30 points when you think she has 10. We’re not going to do anything different. I’ve seen teams play box-and-1, triangle-and-2, put two girls on her and we’re not going to do anything different. Of course you have to know where she is at all times but if she goes to penetrate she’s top two or three in the state in assists so when she penetrates she’s not going to shoot every time so the back side help is going to have to be ready to go. Man she’s a heck of a player.”
Class AA
Chapmanville at Wyoming East, Thursday at 7 p.m.
Both Class AA Region 3 co-finals feature rematches of last year’s games
Starting with Wyoming East and Chapmanville the defending Class AA state champion Lady Warriors are on the path to a return trip to Charleston, likely to face a different team than they did in last year’s co-final.
After a 3-6 start to the season, the Tigers opened eyes with a 55-39 win against Summers County on Jan. 15, holding the Lady Bobcats without a field goal over the final 11 minute of the game. They followed that with a win at Mingo Central and a pair of one-point losses to Class AAA No. 3 Logan and Class AAAA George Washington.
Leading the way for Chapmanville is sophomore center Jaiden Mahon, averaging 13.8 points and 11 rebounds per game. In the backcourt freshmen Haley Fleming and Daizi Farley average 13.9 points each. The two teams haven’t played this season but how that trio of Tigers play will likely determine the outcome. Mahon’s size can cause problems for the Lady Warriors on both ends of the floor as they’re not particularly big, but how the backcourt handles East’s pressure determines much of the game. The Lady Warriors love to press and are good at it, easily forcing over 10 turnovers a game. It also jumpstarts their offense as they convert those steals and turnovers into easy buckets.
The weakness for East though lies in its ability to adequately run and score in a half-court offense. There have been times this season where they’ve ran sets for two minutes and not come away with a bucket, resulting in stagnation. If Chapmanville elects to run a zone it will force East to be patient and execute if it wants a return trip to Charleston. Fortunately for the Lady Warriors, the team’s best 3-point shooter in Hannah Blankenship has his her stride, scoring in double figures in five of her last six contests, coming off a season-high 23 points. First-team all-stater Abby Russell is finding her form as well after returning from an ACL tear. She’s become a more potent 3-point shooter and is rounding back into a player that can initiate and run the offense. Provided East can efficiently execute in the half court, Kayley Bane may be a name to watch as a player that scores and benefits from good ball movement.
Summers County at Mingo Central, Thursday at 7 p.m.
For the second year in a row Summers County head coach Chad Meador will lead his team up to Miner Mountain with a state tournament berth on the line. Mingo Central is 7-1 at home this season with its lone loss coming against Chapmanville.
Meador does have the fact that his team managed to beat Mingo, holding the Miners to their lowest output of the season in a 42-29 victory in Hinton on Jan. 8. Still it’s a different world on the road as Wyoming East found out when it took a No. 2 ranking to Mingo and was upset 54-49 on Jan. 24.
It starts with freshman point guard Addie Smith who leads the Lady Miners in points (21.1) and assists (5) per game. She’s the engine that makes the team go, flanked efficiently by center Madisyn Curry who averages 13.2 points and 9.6 rebounds per game. Curry found herself in foul trouble when the two teams last met but it also makes a point of how Summers is uniquely equipped to guard Mingo.
Smith’s weakness is one that’s out of her control at this point – her size. On a good day she may crack 5-foot-2, making it a challenge when the team runs pick and rolls with her and Curry and she attempts to go over the top. Summers meanwhile has a 5-foot-9 guard in Sullivan Pivont who brings dynamic length and athleticism to the table and can make life difficult for Smith. Even when she’s beat she’s long and athletic enough to track players down from behind and block them while deflecting and disrupting in passing lanes.
Even if Meador doesn’t elect to stick Pivont on Smith, his freshman guard Avery Lilly has proven she’s up to task, drawing the assignment of PikeView first-team all-stater Hannah Perdue this season.
In addition to Smith, Curry’s hands will be full as well.
Summers boasts four post players it rotates in and out regularly with three of them clearing 6-foot. For as good as the Lady Bobcats can be defensively though, they struggle on offense without a consistent outside threat. Another low-scoring affair may be in the cards.
Class AAA
Herbert Hoover at PikeView, Tuesday at 7 p.m.
Seniors Anyah Brown and Hannah Perdue have the opportunity to make it three consecutive trips to Charleston. Standing in their way though is a Herbert Hoover team they’ve seen just once.
The Huskies boast a pair of heavy-hitting scorers in Taylor Ray and Saha Savetava, both of whom crossed the 20-point threshold when the two teams met on Feb. 12 in Elkview, a 60-58 PikeView win.
The Panthers won with contributions from everybody, led primarily by Perdue who poured in 31 in the game. Brown followed with 10 and four other players scored at least four points each. For PikeView the difference between sitting at home and playing next week likely comes down to what it can get from players not named Perdue.
So far this postseason the returns have been good with Brown averaging 19.5 points per game across two contests and Hannah Harden throwing in a double-digit effort against Shady in the sectional championship.
Shady Spring at Sissonville, Tuesday at 7 p.m.
A lot of question marks currently surround Shady heading into Tuesday’s regional championship but they primarily center around the status of Kierra Richmond. The dynamic senior made her return last week against Westside, taking over to lead her team to the win before exiting the sectional championship against PikeView two days later after aggravating an ankle injury that cost her the last few weeks of the regular season.
With Shady down 19 at that point, head coach Brandon Bennett elected to pull his star along with Braylie Wiseman, who had been absent the last several games with her own injury, as a precaution.
Shady hasn’t played Sissonville this season but if the Tigers are healthy all indications are, based on mutual opponents, it will be a tight game. Both teams lost close games to Ripley, pulled away from Nicholas County and were dispatched easily by Winfield.
With a win Shady would earn its first state tournament berth since 2009.
Class AAAA
George Washington at Greenbrier East, Wednesday at 7 p.m.
It’s hard to beat a talented team and program three times in a season but that’s what Greenbrier East will attempt to do Wednesday when it hosts George Washington. The Patriots, plagued with injuries, have been down all season but were competitive until late against a good Capital team in the sectional championship last week.
East won both regular season meetings 52-38 and 59-54. Both contests provided signature performances from Daisha Summers – averaging 22 points and 10 rebounds in the seasons series – with GW’s best player, Finley Lohan, drawing the task of slowing down East’s other standout in Cadence Stewart.
For GW coach Jamie LaMaster it’s a ‘pick your poison’ scenario with Lohan on Stewart still being his best bet considering Stewart has gone scorched earth over the last month of the regular season. Lohan will also be tasked with carrying scoring load as she already does, averaging 14.1 point per contest coming in.
Beckley at Capital, Wednesday at 7 p.m.
The Lady Flying Eagles have stumbled after a six-game winning streak toward the end of the regular season. They’ve dropped two of their last three including the sectional championship at Greenbrier East.
Now they’ll hit the road to face arguably the top team in the region in Capital. The two teams faced off last season, a game won by Beckley in Beckley, but the Lady Flying Eagles had a pair of first-team all-staters in Cloey Frantz and Jamara Walton anchoring their lineup.
Capital is fast, athletic and strong, led by standouts Talayah Bosley and and Mya Toombs. The Cougars have also taken the season series, beating Beckley twice by an average of 16.5 points per game. It bears mentioning though the senior Adriana Law didn’t play in either of those games due to injuries and has been good for nearly 15 points a game at her best.
With her return to the lineup along with the growth of freshmen Abby Dillon, Josie Cross and Mya Wooton – all of whom are starters or play around 20 minutes a game – the previous records may not indicate how the one turns out.
For a full statewide regional schedule, visit here: Regional ScheduleÂ
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
