Gallery by Heather Belcher
Charleston – The Devilettes are used to heat but they still got Blackburned.
A night after the worst offensive performance of her career, East all-stater Cadee Blackburn scorched Ravenswood for 24 points, sending defending state champion Wyoming East to its fourth consecutive Class AA title game with a 54-34 win in the Class AA semifinals Friday evening in the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
The Lady Warriors will face the winner of Williamstown-Wheeling Central on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
A day after Blackburn was held scoreless for the first time in her career she drilled her first shot, a 3-pointer from the left wing, and scorched the Devilettes the rest of the way. The output not only led East to the title game but pushed the junior over 1,000 points for her career.
“There was a lot of pressure yesterday,” Blackburn admitted. “I was super nervous anyway, just states in general and also getting my 1,000th point but today I just played. I didn’t think about it. I honestly forgot that I was only 17 (away from 1,000) because I played so bad yesterday.”
The terrific offensive showing from Blackburn was coupled by one as stellar from the Lady Warriors on the boards and on defense.
With the game tied at 17 in the second quarter the Lady Warriors held Ravenswood scoreless over the next 10 minutes ripping a 20-0 run during that span to put the game away. That stretched featured turnovers and rebounds. A lot of the latter.
East won the rebounding battle 38-18, generating 21 offensive rebounds on 30 misses. Alivia Monroe and Abi Baker led the charges on those fronts with six and seven offensive rebounds, respectively.
“Effort,” East head coach Ryan Davidson said. “Again, I didn’t think our effort was where it was supposed to be yesterday. Rebounding, and I can speak to this firsthand because I’ve got a daughter who’s about 5-foot-4, and leads her college team in rebounding a lot. It’s about effort and timing and today, we were dialed in and when Alivia decides that she wants a basketball, it’s going to be really tough for somebody else. And that’s because she worked hard. I mean, you can’t fake this thing. And so I’m just proud of the effort.”
Getting out in transition, East took control early with a 3-2 lead following a Maddie Clark layup in transition. Up next was Blackburn who saw the first one go through. And then the next.
A pair of treys from the junior pushed East’s lead to 9-4 but a pair of free throws and a floater by Hadleigh McGoskey brought Ravenswood to within four at 17-13 at the end of the first quarter.
A free throw each from Emily Wratchford and Brooklyn Adams, followed by a layup from the former, knotted the game at 17 with 6:26 to go in the half. And then the floodgates opened.
Blackburn and Clark splashed back-to-back 3s to break the tie but that was just the first wave.
A layup from Blackburn and a pair of Clark free throws extended the advantage to 10. Searching for something, Ravenswood’s will further deteriorated as East corralled four offensive rebounds on one possession before Davidson called a timeout. A minute late Monroe put a layup back in and Gabby Cameron capped an 11-offensive rebound quarter for East with a stickback at the buzzer for a 31-17 lead.
Blackburn and Monroe kept the applying the pressure, coming for the first six points of the third quarter to cap the 20-0 spurt.
“I think it’s kind of been our recipe all year,” Davidson said. “Sometimes we’d get out and get into a situation where we want to finish the game on one play. So we get too far up the line or we spend too much time in the passing lane and then we get back cut or we’re jumping things that really are not there. So we just kind of got back to doing what we do – keep them in front. If the help is there, that’s fine. Close out, stop jumping all over the place. And I think when we do that, I think we’re pretty good at defense. But when we start cheating and getting out of our lanes, that’s when we get in trouble.”
“I just think we rushed some shots,” Ravenswood head coach Cara Williams said. “You know, Wyoming East is very good defensively. They’re aggressive and you get kind of sped up sometimes and you rush things and when you’re rushing shots, they don’t go in a lot of the time. So I think that more than anything it just wasn’t our night for the ball to go in the basket.”
Ravenswood broke its drought with 4:18 left in the third quarter but never cut the deficit below 16 the rest of the way.
The victory sends East to the Class AA title game for the seventh time since 2016. It will be the sixth straight title game to feature East after the 2020 tournament was canceled due to the Covid pandemic. The Lady Warriors are 3-3 in championship games.
“I really just get anxious,” Clark said of playing in her fourth consecutive title game. “Before the game you’re just sitting there. I want to just get up and play. I don’t really get nervous. It’s just the fact of getting out there and being ourselves.”
