By Rick Ryan
For the Gazette-Mail
Fred Sauro’s swan song hit a sour note at the end. Again. Maddie Clark made sure of it.
Clark, a guard from Wyoming East, hit an off-balance bank shot in the foul lane at the final buzzer Friday to hand the South a 57-55 victory and cap a wild, back-and-forth North-South girls game at the South Charleston Community Center.
Sauro, the veteran Williamstown coach who directed the North squad with Cameron’s Holly Pettit, was coaching his final game after retiring at the end of the season. A season that culminated with a Class AA title game loss to … Clark and Wyoming East.
Friday’s game was tied at 55 when the North’s Grace Shamblin (Parkersburg South) sank a pair of free throws with 14 seconds left. The South hurried the ball downfloor, but couldn’t get it to team MVP Sophie Nichols (Ripley), who led her team with 21 points and nine rebounds.
So with the clock running down, Clark improvised. She dribbled to the foul lane from the right wing, pulled up and fired a hard, running shot that smacked off the board and fell through as time expired.
“I couldn’t shoot a 3 because they came out on me,’’ Clark said, “and I knew I needed to drive and shoot it and just aim for that board, and how quick I can get it in.
“I was like, ‘Oh, God,’ but I shoot like crazy shots like that all the time, joking and all. So it didn’t feel all that weird.’’
Clark, who scored all six of her points in the final 3:30, said she didn’t hit a game-winner all season for Wyoming East.
South co-coach Jamie LaMaster (George Washington) disdained calling a timeout after Shamblin’s late free throws and opted to run a live play.
“Just like we drew it up,’’ LaMaster said with a grin. “Essentially, it was spread the floor and try to get to the rim and just get a shot up. I thought we were going to run out of time, but I think she got it off in the nick of time and it banked in – and that’s good enough.’’
The loss ruined a fine game for North MVP Ashlynn Van Tassell (Cameron), a Youngstown State signee who finished with 29 points and 15 rebounds. She hit 12 of 18 shots from the floor and was 2 of 2 from 3-point range. The rest of her team was 1 of 24 from distance.
There were four lead changes in the second half. The South took a 50-48 lead on a Nichols’ three-point play with 1:26 left, but Van Tassell tied it up with a shot from the low post at the 1:12 mark.
Hailey Newsome (Nitro) looked like she might be the hero when she took a feed from the double-teamed Nichols and fired in a 3 for a 53-50 South lead with 50 seconds to go.
But the North got four straight foul shots from Shamblin and one from Ashlyn Riley to offset a layup by the South’s Clark off a nifty sideline inbound play, all of which knotted the game at 55 and set the stage for the frantic ending provided by Clark.
“It was just like the state championship,’’ Sauro said with a wry grin. “Girl from the same team, Wyoming East.’’
Sauro, 76, had ended his 54-year coaching career in March, leading Williamstown to the AA title game, a 46-42 loss to Wyoming East.
“I thought in the long run, that our kids responded when we had to,’’ Sauro said of Friday’s setback. “We didn’t rebound well at first, then we started rebounding like crazy – in the second half, especially, on the defensive end, because we were outsized a lot.’’
Led by Van Tassell, the North led off the boards 52-41, but offset that with subpar shooting (21 of 80, 26%). The South shot 41% from the floor (20 of 49), getting rebounding support from Newsome, who had eight points and eight rebounds.
“Van Tassell is hard to stop,’’ LaMaster said. “We tried to double, bring help, front [her], back [her]. If she gets her hands on it around the rim, all you can do it hope she misses it.’’
The South’s bugaboo was turnovers – 19 in all compared to just six for the North.
“Early on, we took better care of the ball,’’ LaMaster said, “but kids aren’t actually in game shape and I think fatigue sets it. We tried to rotate as much as we could.’’
Abigail Pruitt (River View) also scored eight points for the South. Shamblin finished with eight points for the North.
Sauro coached the Yellowjackets for 38 seasons and his career total of 557 wins bettered the listed record of 542 girls basketball wins held by John Marshall’s Stan Blankenship.
However, before Sauro can be credited as the new leader, Doug Huff, the secretary-treasurer of the West Virginia Sports Writers Association and keeper of state records, said some other longtime coaches’ victory totals need to be updated – including Huntington’s Lonnie Lucas.
The pregame skills competition winners were – slam dunk (Elijah Redfern, Woodrow Wilson); girls 3-point shooting (Sophie Nichols, Ripley), boys 3-point shooting (Cam Layton, Frankfort); girls free-throw shooting (Kenna Maxwell, Lewis County), boys free-throw shooting (Dylan Casto, Sissonville).
Winners of scholarships from the West Virginia Athletic Directors Association, sponsors of the game, were the North’s Emma Freels (North Marion) and the South’s Charity Reichard (Meadow Bridge).
Friday marked the third time the girls game had been added to the North-South bill at the South Charleston Community Center. Previously, the girls game ran from 2003-05 at Capital High School before going defunct. It was revived in 2016 and held at the Waco Center in Glenville through 2021.
South 57, North 55
North;13;12;17;13;–;55
South;18;11;10;18;–;57
North – Tenley Paugh 1-7 0-0 3, Kenly Rogers 1-12 0-0 2, Grace Shamblin 2-11 4-4 8, Ashlyn Riley 3-10 1-2 7, Ashlynn Van Tassell 12-18 3-8 29, Emma Freels 0-3 1-2 1, Macy Helmick 0-2 1-2 1, Ashlynn Peters 0-4 0-0 0, Kenna Maxwell 0-3 0-0 0, Izzy Blomquist 1-5 0-0 2, Jenna Barnett 1-5 0-0 2, totals 21-80 10-18 55
South – Laneigh Brooks 3-6 0-2 7, Sophie Nichols 6-7 7-11 21, Alaira Evans 1-8 0-0 3, Hailey Newsome 3-7 0-0 8, Maddie Clark 3-7 0-0 6, Cat Farmer 0-1 2-2 2, Cara Smith 0-2 0-0 0, Abigail Pruitt 3-6 2-4 8, Erin Ryan 1-3 0-3 2, Mary Beth Meadows 0-2 0-0 0, Charity Reichard 0-0 0-0 0, totals 20-49 11-21 57
3-point shooting: North 3-26 (Paugh 1-3, Rogers 0-3, Shamblin 0-2, Riley 0-4, Van Tassell 2-2, Freels 0-1, Peters 0-2, Maxwell 0-2, Blomquist 0-4, Barnett 0-3), South 6-20 (Brooks 1-1, Nichols 2-3, Evans 1-6, Newsome 2-4, Clark 0-1, Pruitt 0-3, Ryan 0-1, Meadows 0-1); Rebounds: North 52 (Van Tassell 15, Shamblin 6), South 41 (Nichols 9, Newsome 8); Assists: North 13 (Rogers 3, Barnett 2), South 14 (Clark 3, Evans 3); Turnovers: North 6, South 19;
