Gallery by Heather Belcher
For four minutes Bluefield hung with defending state champion Wyoming East.
The next 28? Not so much.
The Lady Warriors blistered the nets hitting on nearly 60 percent of their shots Thursday in an 83-51 win over the Beavers in the New River CTC Invitational championship game at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center.
While East did still attack with its pressure defense at times, it leaned more on its ability to guard in the half court and play full-court man-to-man.
It resulted in the Beavers hitting on just 7 of their 27 (25 percent) first-half field goal attempts.
“I think losing can do some really good things for you,” Wyoming East head coach Ryan Davidson said. “They’ve got a couple girls, they can get down hill and if you don’t cut it off, they’re gonna get to the rim. So I was really proud of the way we didn’t always get steals like you’re talking about but I thought we stopped them from getting to the rim if that makes sense. And we rebounded it and got out. Now I was a little unhappy late with our defense. I thought we got lazy and I don’t like the way we rebounded for parts the game, but when we’re shooting it that way. You can get some things going.”
Both teams struggled to find their footing on offense out of the break, leading to an early tie at 4-4 and a one-point game at 8-7 after Bluefield’s Cara Brown converted on a layup attempt.
But the floodgates opened in a hurry.
Cadee Blackburn, who finished with a game-high 31 points, opened them with a 3 and Alivia Monroe followed with a trio of points on a three-point play. Maddie Clark followed with a steal and breakaway layup with Blackburn and Monroe adding a layup each.
Blackburn did the final honors of the frame with a 3 to cap a 15-0 run that firmly put the Lady Warriors in control.
The East offense continued to rolled in the second quarter, piling up 25 more points for a 48-21 lead at the break. The all-state tandem of Blackburn and Clark led the charge with a combined 14 points, assisting on 7 of the 11 fields goals made in the frame.
“I think that speaks to how unselfish this team is now,” Davidson said. “They were more excited about making an extra pass to somebody and seeing the ball go in than getting their own. And if we can do that regularly, and play defense, the way we play, we got a chance to be pretty good.”
Nurturing and developing the half-court attack has been a point emphasis for Davidson and his program. There’s always room for growth but if the Lady Warriors want to repeat for the first time in program history he knows they’ll need to be better in the situations they haven’t had to play in much.
“We’re doing a much better job of running offense,” Davidson said. “We’re getting to the point now where we’re getting the shots we want, where before it was forced. They would try to get the shots they wanted, but it was maybe a second slower. Now we’re stepping into what we want.”
Blackburn led the scoring assault with a game-high 31 points on 12 of 21 shooting. Maddie Clark and Alivia Monroe scored 16 each with Clark adding nine assists.
Arionna Dowell led Bluefield with 20 points on 7 of 12 shooting.
