Gallery by Heather Belcher
Cadee Blackburn still has two more years of high school basketball to play but Zul’s, the popular frozen lemonade brand, would be wise to sign her to an NIL deal as soon as she’s eligible.
The electric sophomore dazzled the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center Friday evening, pouring in 22 first-half points, helping Wyoming East to a 66-41 win over Petersburg in the Class AA semifinals.
With the win East returns to the Class AA title game for the third consecutive season and will play for the championship for the sixth time in the last eight years. Awaiting the Lady Warriors are their sectional foes from Summers County who they’ll face at 5 p.m. on Saturday.
Blackburn, who scored 12 points in the third quarter of East’s quarterfinal win against Ravenswood on Wednesday, joked that her Zul’s powered that performance after she drank it at the intermission of that contest.
“I got it before the game this time,” Blackburn smiled. “By halftime I had two.”
30-point performances, powered by Zul’s pic.twitter.com/WWAPGwLtbS
— Tyler Jackson (@TJack94) March 11, 2023
The sophomore finished the evening with 30 points on 11 of 21 shooting, canning four of her eight 3-point attempts.
“I need to see one go in usually,” Blackburn said with a more serious demeanor. “If I see one go in I usually feel more confident in my shooting.”
“I think we did an excellent job of hitting her too,” East head coach Angie Boninsegna added. “We did an excellent job on penetrating and dishing. She gets some open looks and she gets her feet under her, she shoots, usually, really well.”
Following the trend set in their quarterfinal win against Ravenswood, the Lady Warriors’ defense swarmed from the jump, putting Petersburg in uncomfortable position all evening. They forced 12 turnovers in the first half and 22 for the game. It led to Petersburg holding just twos leads with the final one coming 62 seconds into the game.
“We knew that we were going to see some of that pressure,” Petersburg head coach Jon Webster said. “We knew that we were going to have to withstand it but we didn’t handle it as well as we hoped for. It’s so different going from the first round game to the second round game, especially this year where we had a little over a week to prepare and it’s hard to prepare for the pressure we saw tonight in a day-and-a-half unless you see it regularly throughout the season. We saw different types of pressure but we didn’t quite see it like that.”
Kayley Bane, who finished with 12 points, promptly erased the Vikings’ first lead on a 3 in transition at the 7:16 mark and a pair of Blackburn free throws less than 90 seconds into the game gave East the advantage for good. Layups from Blackburn and Clark pushed the advantage to 9-4 but the Vikings proved relentless, getting to within a point at 12-11 with 2:57 left in the half.
But the Vikings continued to feel the Blackburn.
She countered with another layup and a 3 with 36 seconds left to push East’s lead out to eight at 20-12 after a quarter.
From there the onslaught from downtown continued.
As she had two years ago when East faced Petersburg in the semifinals, Maddie Clark came to life on offense in the second quarter. Though instead of relying on her defense to generate it, she relied on her shot, canning three 3-pointers in the frame while Blackburn added another to her ledger. Clark finish the game with 13 points and six assists.
“After I made that first one I was more confident in my shot,” Clark said. “I got another look and I made that one so I just got more comfortable.”
When the dust settled East held a 41-22 advantage at the break.
While live-ball turnovers helped the charge, East’s ability to draw charges didn’t hurt. Senior Kayley Bane excelled in that aspect with three while Blackburn added one of her own.
“We knew from the jump they were going to run us over,” Bane said. “I knew when and where to be.”
“We watched a lot of film on them,” Blackburn added.
Blackburn and Bane combined for East’s first six points of the second half, helping push the advantage to 18 points at 48-30 but an 8-0 Petersburg run posed the first true threat to the Lady Warriors’ lead since the first quarter.
Four free throws from Bane and a layup from Abi Baker, who played 23 minutes off the bench in an attempt to keep senior starter Abby Russell, pushed the advantage to 15 where it remained after three quarters.
Baker, a freshman, maximized her playing time with six points while stealing four passes.
“Abi’s reminding me of Maddie Clark when she was a freshman,” Boninsegna said. “If you remember back that way, to a certain degree she’s settling in. She’s not playing like a freshman. She penetrated a lot tonight and did some good kick outs. She’s had good year for us defensively. She’s giving us some offense now which adds a another component to her.”
Blackburn put the final nail in the coffin with a trey 13 seconds into the final quarter, ensuring East would play for a title for the third consecutive season and sixth time in eight years.
Up next is a Summers team that East finished the season 2-1 against but lost to 50-47 on its own floor in the sectional title game on Feb. 22. Saturday’s game will mark the fourth matchup between the two squads with Summers having closed the gap each time, losing by 23, eight and then finally winning by three on Feb. 22.
Despite the loss Boninsegna believes it marked a turning point that spurred East’s current run.
“When we got beat by Summers in our sectional and I think that was a little bit of a wakeup call for us,” Boninsegna said. “Then we went down and played a tough Chapmanville game at Chapmanville and we were able to come across with it. I think it’s the belief in each other and we’re getting good play off our bench. Abi Baker’s coming in and playing well for us along with (Clark, Blackburn and Bane) on the defensive end. It’s given them a little bit of confidence in themselves and each other.”
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
