Gallery by Heather Belcher
Hinton – Most metrics had Mercer Christian as a winner Friday night at Summers County.
The Cavaliers had seven fewer turnovers (23-16), made just one less field goal (28-27) with eight extra attempts and came away with 16 steals.
The metric that worked against them did so heavily.
Summers County out-rebounded Mercer Christian 43-27, grabbing 17 offensive boards in a 68-65 win Friday in Hinton.
With the win Summers advances to the Rogers Oil Classic title game where it will face Braxton County on Saturday. Mercer Christian will face Tug Valley in the consolation match.
The high-scoring affair was just that throughout with the Cavaliers playing catchup throughout the night. They just couldn’t take the lead after multiple runs with Summers fending them off in the end.
“They’ve got three kids who are really good 3-point shooters, and we just didn’t get out on them,” Summers head coach Rick Blevins said. “We just put a hand up sometimes and they made the shots and made us pay. And also listen (Bailee Martin), that kid rebounded like crazy tonight for them. She got rebound after rebound. But I’m really proud of our kids. Avery Lilly’s second game at point guard and she played great again. We had a freshman start again for the first time. Jaelyn Boone played great and hit a big three in the corner when the game started, got her got her feet under her. Listen, we had a lot of great contributions. Cheyenne Smith did a great job. Avery Lilly always, always plays really hard. She did a great job for us and everybody who played tonight played really well. I thought, everybody gave us good minutes and that’s big.”
The runs flowed both ways but Summers was ultimately on the right end of them.
The host Bobcats landed the first blow, jumping out to a 7-0 advantage with a pair of buckets from Gracie Harvey and Abby Perisnger sandwiching a Boone 3-pointer.
Kayley Trump, who finished with a game-high 27 to pace the Cavs, responded with a personal 9-2 run that featured a pair of 3s and tied the game at 9-9. Pressured, the Bobcats responded.
Lilly nailed a 3 to jumpstart a 10-0 run that established a 19-9 Summers advantage after a frame. The lead eventually ballooned to 11 in the second quarter following a shot from Braelyn Farrish that made it 32-21. But again the Cavs rallied, closing the half with an 11-2 run, capped by a 3 from Trump who scored 18 of her 27 in the first half.
She proved to be a threat all night, jumping passing lanes for seven steals and finding open spots in Summers’ defense for quality looks.
“The difference for us has been when teams are pressing us Ella (Botts) is able to handle that ball on a press,” MCA coach Jessica Patton said. “She’s being pressed left and right and she draws that attention. She was able to connect with Bailee Martin last game. This game Kayley’s right there so when Ella is now able to beat a press and feel comfortable when they’re pressing her then we got Kayley running the floor. We got Bailee around the floor and we got open shots because all the attention that is on that ball. And Kayley has really come on to knock them down. Sometimes it takes her a while to get her motor going. Tonight was the first time she started instead of like getting warmed up. She started like a boss and that has helped us. She came in like a senior should.”
The Cavs remained close but not close enough throughout the second half, trimming the deficit to two at 40-38 but an 11-0 Summers run that saw Cheyenne Smith, Lilly, Harvey and Persinger all score threatened to take the top off. Another Trump 3 again helped slow the roll, though only momentarily. The Bobcats pushed their advantage to 13 again early in the fourth quarter on a Boone 3 and Persinger layup but Martin and Trump combined for a 9-0 run to make it 60-56. The closest the Cavaliers could get the rest of the way was three points with Summers capitalizing on its’ rebounding advantage and height to guide the ship home.
“It seemed like it went the other way,” Blevins said of the rebounding advantage. “It seemed like they out-rebounded us. We just lit them up a little bit in locker room, telling them they needed to get rebounds, defensive rebounds. The last couple of games, we haven’t been able to make shots. We had good shots close to the basket tonight. That was big for us, too. We rebounded better but we still got to get better at that. We still have to get a butt on people and box them out. We got to get better rebounding, but we played a lot better tonight.”
Persinger and Harvey led the charge for Summers with 19 points each in the win. Boone added 10 while Avery Lilly scored nine, assisted on nine and grabbed seven boards. Martin joined Trump in double figures with 12 followed by Botts with 11.
MCA: 9 23 15 18 – 65
SC: 19 15 21 13 – 68
Mercer Christian
Karis Trump 8, Ella Botts 11, Kayley Trump 27, Bailee Martin 12, Abby Greer 7
Summers County
Gracie Harvey 19, Cheyenne Smith 6, Avery Lilly 9, Abby Persinger 19, Jaelynn Boone 10, Braelyn Farrish 5
