On the night of Feb. 22, there was a pair of scissors taped to the door inside the Wyoming East girls locker room. Above it was a sign that read, “Use these to cut down the nets tonight.”
Every East player and coach walked out of the locker room that night without ever using those scissors.
The Lady Warriors were served a reality check when Summers County, a highly successful program that hadn’t beaten Wyoming East since this year’s seniors were in fifth grade (2016), waltzed into New Richmond that night and claimed a sectional championship with a 50-47 win.
While it broke a trend, it wasn’t necessarily a surprise. As the season progressed, most other teams seemed to get better while East was largely the same one that tipped off in November. Summers for instance lost its first game 53-30 against East, led by two points in the fourth quarter the next time the two schools played and crossed the hump in that sectional championship game.
That wasn’t the only time cracks were visible in the armor.
Mingo Central, a team East beat by 17 in December, won the following month at Mingo on a buzzer-beater and won once again at The Greenbrier in February. Again, other teams seemed to get better while East, the most talented double-A in the state, seemingly stood still.
This was what I wrote about the team on Feb. 18.
When push came to shove the Lady Warriors discovered their identity and launched a title run.
When East bombarded Ravenswood with 23 points in the first quarter of its quarterfinal victory last week in the Charleston Coliseum, it signaled a change from the team most had seen this season, but also a return to the one most had been accustomed to seeing over the years. The Lady Warriors pressured the ball, sped the game up, penetrated, moved the ball quickly and made teams uncomfortable.
It led to Maddie Clark dishing 12 assists, East scoring 30 fastbreak points and shooting 55 percent for the game.
In that they announced they were back – all gas, no brakes.
As subjective as it may sound, the truth lies in the numbers.
In counting stats alone East lapped the Class AA field in Charleston.
The Lady Warriors averaged 63.3 points per game in their three state tournament games. The second-highest average belonged to Wheeling Central at 45 points per game. That’s nearly 20 more points per game than any other team. Wheeling Central only played one game but when you go to other teams that played multiple games it’s not any better. Petersburg was third with 44.5 points per game in two games and Summers generated 42 per contest across three.
Pushing the tempo, the Lady Warriors ran a transition style offense that was initiated as quickly as the ball was inbounded or rebounded. Passes from the high post to the top of the key and over to the wing or corner ensured the ball didn’t stop, generating options to catch and shoot or drive for East’s best scorers.
Accustomed to slow starts this season (Scoring 4, 9, 5 and 9 points on four separate occasions against Summers County and Mingo Central), East scored at least 20 points in the first quarter of its quarterfinal and semifinal games and scored the first 11 points of its title tilt against Summers.
Clark, on top of leading the field in assists per game (7.3), led in field goals made (19), field goal percentage (67 percent) and 3-point percentage (100 percent, 4 of 4), all despite finishing fifth in field goal attempts across the three-game run.
Clark’s tournament run was a microcosm of East’s overall offensive performance as it led the tournament in field goal percentage (49 percent), 3-point percentage (40 percent) and assists (47, 18 more than second place).
Sophomore Cadee Blackburn, the team’s leading scorer, produced a tournament-best 30-point performance in the semifinals on an efficient 11 of 21 shooting performance.
Facing zone defenses most of the year, East struggled against top tier teams that dictated the tempo and forced it to slow down. That wasn’t the case in Charleston. The Lady Warriors dictated the pace the entire week. Even Saturday’s championship matchup, a rematch with that same excellent Summers squad that forced East to think deeper, was a direct reflection of that.
East scored the first 11 points of the game and sure, Summers nearly caught up, making it a 12-10 game at one point and following with various other charges along the way, but the points came in a flurry on both ends. That’s not a style that favored Summers. The Lady Bobcats may have gone bucket for bucket with East for stretches, but that pace was out of Summers’ comfort zone. When it won at East it built an early lead, maintained an advantage for most of the evening, never trailed by more than six and held East to 47 points, well below its average of 58 per game and 63 in Charleston.
Chad Meador, Summers’ head coach concurred after the game.
“They shot well at the beginning of the basketball game and I thought they dictated the basketball game early,” Meador said. “We just never could quite catch up. I think we might’ve been down 8-0 or 10-0 and we battled back. Eventually you have to stop battling back and you have to get ahead against a good team like that.”
All gas no break didn’t apply on offense alone though.
Throughout the year East backed off its pressure packages, allowing teams to get into their sets while facing little resistance in advancing the ball up court.
Again, it was a different story in Charleston with players buying in.
Blackburn in particular is a player who made strides. In a 63-58 win at Princeton on Jan. 24, East led by double digits in the second quarter and was headed to a comfortable blowout win. Until it wasn’t.
Princeton made it a game in the fourth quarter, exposing another crack in the armor. Late in the game there was a sequence where Blackburn hit a 3 and turned to the crowd to celebrate. As a result she was late to get back on defense and Princeton raced up the floor, answering with its own 3 in just seconds.
Her growth was evident in the title game.
After scoring 30 points just 20 hours beforehand, Blackburn attempted just four shots in the title game. Summers’ gameplan was to facegaurd and deny her the ball. When she got the ball she never forced it and while she only scored four points her presence was felt as she grabbed nine rebounds and stole two passes. But what didn’t show up in the box score was just as important. She communicated and pointed on defense and with five minuets to go, she started to slow the offense down and burn clock. There were points where she had numbers on the break and could’ve scored but pulled the ball out, making the correct decision. She made the plays that gave her team the best chance to win and in doing so it did.
While East’s defense wasn’t a weakness this season, coming into Charleston it wasn’t as productive as it had been in previous years. Steals per game were at their lowest since 2017 and the let up allowed teams to gain confidence.
Again, the numbers support the belief that when it mattered most, the East defense was at its best.
East led the tournament in steals with 33 (11 more than the next team), scoring defense (39.7 points per game), 3-point defense (17 percent) and finished second in field goal defense, holding teams to 30 percent shooting. And context within a game matters too.
Summers County only turned the ball over 10 times against East in the championship matchup, which doesn’t seem like a lot. What matters is when those turnovers came. The Lady Bobcats gave the ball away five times in the first five minutes during which time East built its 11-0 run. Essentially East maximized an early window to get Summers out of its comfort zone. At the highest level, that’s what a great team does – dictates the game, forcing you into its style of play.
There were bumps along the way and even doubts the Lady Warriors would return to this point. But the players and coaches, diagnosed the problems, made the necessary adjustments, saved their best for last and now they stand atop the mountain as champions again.
