Charleston – The heartbreak is over.
After consecutive state tournament exits at the hands of Morgantown the last two years, Wheeling Park pulled away from the Mohigans in the fourth quarter to claim a 65-51 victory in the Class AAAA state championship game Saturday afternoon in the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
The win avenges a loss in last year’s title game and delivers the program’s first title since 1999.
“As always, we have so much respect for Morgantown,” Wheeling Park head coach Ryan Young said. “You know, they’re just an awesome program. Somebody had to come out on the short end here and usually, it’s been us the last few years, so we really kind of owed them I think. So yeah, I’ve been waiting to sit in this seat on the last game and on the winning side. So it’s been a long time coming. We’ve had a great program, but haven’t got to this point yet. So this is a special team with special kids and I love them all and I couldn’t be more proud of them.”
Trailing by 10 points late in the second quarter, the Mohigans rallied behind the scorching hand of freshman Kayli Kellogg who nailed three consecutive treys in the final 63 seconds to get within a point at the break.
It took less than a minute into the second half for the Mohigans to take the lead at 32-31 but an 11-0 run that featured 3s from a trio of 1,000 points scorers in Natalie Daugherty, Lala Woods and Alexis Bordas gave Park a lead it never relinquished.
The Mohigans threatened, cutting the deficit to five points with a 6-0 run at the end of the third quarter but saw their progress stunted when Woods and Bordas combined for the first nine points of the fourth to provide the necessary cushion.
Bordas, who tied with Kellogg for a game-high 22 points, earned Class AAAA MVP honors after scoring 88 points (29 points per game) across three games, doing so while shooting 51 percent from the field.
