Gallery by Heather Belcher
Charleston – For 20 minutes the word upset could be heard whispered along the lower levels of the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
Sullivan Pivont effectively put a pin in that balloon.
The senior wing nailed a 3-pointer for her team’s first field goal of the third quarter, igniting a 10-0 run that allowed the top-seeded Lady Bobcats to down Frankfort 46-29 Wednesday evening in the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
With the win Summers advances to the Class AA semifinals for the first time since 2011 where it will face the winner of Wednesday evening’s Wheeling Central-Charleston Catholic matchup at 11:15 a.m. on Friday. Summers last played in a semifinal in 2017 but was a Class A school at the time.
In a game where offense was at a premium, Pivont’s 3 – that broke a five-minute scoreless snap at the 3:45 mark – gave Summers an 18-16 lead, one it didn’t relinquish the rest of the way.
“I think we just identified our nerves and put it into good energy and started embracing it,” Pivont said. “We were like, ‘We want to win this game, we do not want to go home!’ Once I hit that 3 I kind of gained a little confidence and hit Grace (Harvey) down low and it kind of gave us some momentum.”
Facing Frankfort’s 3-2 defense, the Lady Bobcats struggled through the first half netting just five field goals with two coming courtesy of Abby Persinger in the last 97 seconds.
After Pivont’s 3 and a Harvey layup on which the latter assisted on, it forced a change in the Falcons’ defense, creating an opening for Summers.
“We got about two possessions and they were still in that 3-2,” Meador said. “We went to our two-guard extended set and just pushed them out. It took about a minute-and-a-half off the clock and the next dead ball, the next possession we had, they jumped into that man-to-man defense and we thought if we could get them out of that 3-2 zone that we would be better and we would have more offense. That’s kind of been the case all year. Teams have zoned us up and if we can get them into a man-to-man setting, we tend to do better.”
A 4-4 after a quarter, Frankfort took its first lead of the night 18 seconds into the second on a Jillian Alt layup. It took a minute but Summers reclaimed the advantage when Pivont found the bottom of the net from deep. Sophomore guard Avery Lilly added to the advantage when she was fouled on a 3-point attempt, canning two of her ensuing free throws and adding a layup.
She led Summers with six points at the break, four of which came from the free throw line.
“I took that first drive in apart from the tip and I got fouled,” Lilly said. “I think it was the first two points of the game and I got settled. I realized there’s a lot at stake in these games. And so, myself included, girls are more likely to foul out of desperation. I kind of noticed if we can get on the foul line it gives us time to recover and just calm the speed down. There was some effort (to get to the line) and I felt more confident shooting from the foul line than from 3.”
Persinger’s layups before the half gave Summers a 15-11 advantage but the drought to start the third gave Frankfort an opportunity to climb out of the hole and take a 16-15 advantage on a Carlee Kesner layup.
From there Summers launched its run, taking a 25-16 lead into the fourth quarter.
Frankfort standout Larae Grove cut it back to seven on a layup a minute into the fourth but back-to back buckets from Harvey pushed the advantage out to double digits and the Lady Bobcats held steady the rest of the way, winning the final quarter 21-13. The final frame also served as a showcase for senior point guard Liv Meador who was able to drive the lane, scoring eight of her 10 points in the final frame.
“If you look at our scores all season we average 30 a game,” Frankfort head coach Steve Willison said. “We don’t score a lot of points. We basically try to play defense and force teams that score 70, 80 and hold them down into the 30s and 40s. If we can do that typically we’re in the game. We stayed in the 3-2 zone and it held them down. That was our gameplan – to hold them down because we knew we have trouble scoring a lot of points.”
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