Gallery by Heather Belcher
New Richmond – Wyoming East dominated the sectional championship against Summers County in ways that normally translate into a win.
The Lady Warriors took 15 more shots than the Lady Bobcats and won the turnover battle 19-6. The Lady Bobcats responded by maximizing their opportunities, keeping their composure, doing the little things and in the process shook a seven-year-old monkey off their backs.
Trailing by six entering the fourth quarter, Summers rallied to outscore East 15-6 in the final frame, clinching the program’s first sectional championship since 2020 with a 50-47 victory in New Richmond Wednesday and its first since the four-class realignment in 2021.
— Tyler Jackson (@TJack94) February 23, 2023
While Summers was outmatched in turnovers and field goal attempts, it out-rebounded East 26-13 and shot 56 percent (19 of 34) from the field. The final metric that fell in the Lady Bobcats favor? Free throw percentage. Summers finished 7 of 10 from the charity stripe while East was a pedestrian 5 of 15.
Free throws in particular came into play late as Summers County’s Liv Meador converted on all four of her attempts in the final minute while East clanked a pair.
“She’s taken butt-chewing after butt-chewing after butt-chewing,” Summers County head coach Chad Meador said of his daughter Liv. “She goes to bootcamp and takes some more butt-chewings. She’s battle tested and she’s been in every environment. I could tell when she went to the line she was confident. A lot of times shooting foul shots is just that – taking a deep breath and knowing your team needs you. She wasn’t going to leave here knowing she left it on the line.”
For East it was a collection of its worst hits from the jump with slow starts and poor shooting serving as the headliners.
The Lady Warriors took their only lead of the first half when Colleen Lookabill converted a free throw for the first point. The Lady Bobcats responded with a jolting 7-0 run that featured 3s from Sullivan Pivont and Avery Lilly, jostling a raucous crowd despite all-stater Gracie Harvey delegated to the bench with two quick fouls.
“Sometimes adrenaline gets you,” East head coach Angie Bonisegna said. “You can have adrenaline and you’re all jumpy and sometimes it works out positive. They were pumped when they left the shower room but sometimes it just doesn’t show on the court.”
East eventually slashed it to three to make it 12-9 game at the end of the first but strong starts in each quarter buoyed the Summers offense. A 7-3 spurt to open the second quarter pushed the Summers lead to seven but five points in the frame from Maddie Clark helped East make it a two-point deficit at the break.
A pair of layups from Clark to open the third quarter helped East tie the game at 24 and Lookabill once again gave her team the lead with a layup, kicking off a back-and-forth quarter. East took a 29-26 lead after an Abi Baker layup but Harvey and Abby Persinger converted on a pair of their own to reclaim the advantage.
The two teams traded 3s courtesy of Lilly and Cadee Blackburn, staking the hosts to a 41-35 advantage heading into the final quarter.
Then came the run.
Persinger, who scored a team-high 14 points, ripped a personal 6-0 run that included a pair buckets off of offensive rebounds to tie the contest at 41, reigniting the visitors.
“She’s one of the players down the stretch that’s given us great minutes,” Meador said. “She’s steady and she doesn’t get too rattled. She just took it right to the basket and hit back to back baskets there. She’s developed a really nice game and she’s just a great player to coach. She soaks up everything you tell her and it was just an outstanding performance.”
Blackburn quelled the run with a layup but Lilly, who was 4 of 4 from downtown, was quick with a 3, her final of the evening. Clark responded with a layup that provided East its last lead of the night at 45-44. Pivont provided the final push with a jumper with 51 seconds remaining and Meador put the finishing touches on the game.
East had a look at the tying 3 but came up empty.
The win is the first for Summers against Wyoming East since the 2015-16 season and ensures the Lady Bobcats will host the loser of Friday’s matchup between Chapmanville and Mingo Central with a state tournament berth on the line. East will travel to the winner of that matchup.
Summers split with both Mingo and Chapmanville, winning at home against Mingo earlier this month and winning at Chapmanville last month. Wyoming East is 1-2 against Mingo this season having lost at Mingo and on a neutral court at The Greenbrier.
“The second Monday of November, we were getting ready to warm up and do our normal stretches,” Meador said. “We’re talking to each other and we’re setting some goals. The last thing that came out of my mouth before we said the Lord’s Prayer and went to stretching was ‘You’ve got to beat Mingo and you’ve got to beat Chapmanville.’ It was the message the first Monday of the season and it will be the last message before we leave tonight.”
East, which has played for five of the last six state championships, will be in an unfamiliar position next week hitting the road for a regional matchup for the first time since 2020, which is also the last time the program missed the state tournament.
“We’ll evaluate,” Boninsegna said. We’ll look at some things and we’ll go back to the drawing board. If we make foul shots it’s a different ball game … We’ll try different things. We don’t know who we’ll play. We’ll play next Tuesday so we’ll try to adapt and do different things the next couple of days.”
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
SC: 12 10 13 15 – 50
WE: 9 11 21 6 – 47
Summers County
Liv Meador 7, Avery Lilly 12, Gracie Harvey 6, Abby Persinger 14, Sullivan Pivot 10, Cheyenne Smith 1
Wyoming East
Colleen Lookabill 3, Maddie Clark 17, Kayley Bane 5, Abby Russell 2, Cadee Blackburn 16, Abi Baker 2, Gabby Cameron 2
3-point field goals – SC: 5 (Lilly 4, Pivont 1) ; WE: 2 (Blackburn 2)
