Gallery by Heather Belcher
HINTON – After a brutal 62-28 loss to Parkersburg Catholic on Dec. 11, the goal for Wyoming East was to refocus and work on the what’s in front of it.
With three regional games immediately after that thrashing, establishing dominance in the region was a priority.
The Lady Warriors will head into the Christmas break feeling content with where they’re at.
East finished its early regional slate Wednesday night in Hinton with a 49-24 win over sectional foe Summers County.
The win marks the third straight in regional play with their previous two coming against Bluefield and Mingo Central, both by double digits as well.
Once again defense was the calling card for the visitors who forced 27 turnovers, allowing just nine field goals  to fall through the net.
“It was a really physical game and we kept at it,” East coach Angie Boninsegna said. “We played hard. We’re going to be mismatched a lot in our games because we’re small. Even our bigs are kind of small compared to that. I was really proud of our interior defense and we played hard.”
While the defense was the highlight for the visiting Lady Warriors, they exhibited patience in their offensive sets early on. After a minute of working the ball around the arc for a shot, East guard Cadee Blackburn secured an offensive rebound and put it back up for the first points of the game. Maggie Stover answered on the other end with a short jumper for Summers on an assist from Liv Meador but a quick spurt that included a layup from Colleen Lookabill, a layup from Maddie Clark and a 3-pointer from Blackburn quickly made it a 9-2 game.
Meador stopped the bleeding with a layup of her own but a pair of buckets from Kayley Bane and another from Hannah Blankenship helped East to a 15-6 advantage after a quarter.
Meanwhile the Lady Bobcats struggled to get anything going on offense.
They made just one of their seven field goal attempts in the second quarter, watching East take a 34-11 lead into the break.
“Our offense struggled because Wyoming East’s defense is that good,” Summers County coach Chad Meador said. “It was swarming. You look up and there’s one in your face. You look over and there’s another one you have to pass the ball through. Hats off to them, they’re a very good basketball team. Make no bones about it – their defensive pressure and defensive intensity were the main reasons we couldn’t do anything offensively. We have to have better guard play and play a lot better with some poise when teams do D you up like they do.
“You’ve just got to learn from it. These type of losses, you don’t ever want but if they happen early you can rebound and go from there. Wyoming East is in our head a little bit right now. The last two times we’ve played them we’ve lost significantly so we’ve got to do a better job of playing with more focus.”
The scoring on both sides slowed in the second half. The two teams combined for just 19 points in the third quarter and nine in the fourth quarter. The Lady Warriors’ lone blemish of the game was the fact they scored only six points in the final frame, going scoreless over the first five minutes of the quarter. To their credit they only attempted three shots.
Despite the lack of scoring, Bane, Clark and Blackburn all finished in double figures for East with Bane’s 14 points leading the team for the third consecutive game.
“We ran our offense and were taking some 3s and weren’t hitting them so we kind of slowed it down in the fourth quarter,” Boninsegna said. “We were wanting to get good shots and we got good shots and we missed some layups. We were a little timid under there, but Hannah (Blankenship) was huge for us. She went and got some rebounds and played strong. We finished the game better today. Growth is where we’re at right now and we’re growing.”
Liv Meador led Summers in scoring with seven points.
Wyoming East improves to 4-1 on the season and will play at Logan on Dec. 28. Summers drops to 4-3, dropping its third straight game after winning its first four. The next chance to snap the streak will come on Dec. 28 when the Lady Bobcats host sectional for Bluefield.
WE (4-1): 16 19 9 6 – 49
SC (4-3): 6 5 10 3 – 24
Wyoming East 49
Hannah Blankenship 6, Madison Clark 11, Kayley Bane 14, Colleen Lookabill 4, Cadede Blackburn 12, Alivia Monroe 2
Summers County 24
Maggie Stover 6, Gracie Harvey 4, Abby Persinger 2, Liv Meador 7, Sullivan Pivont 3, Jesse Ward 2
3-point goals – WE: 3 (Bane, Blackburn 2); SC: 0.
