MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – It wasn’t the prettiest of wins for the Morgantown girls’ basketball team. Head coach Jason White didn’t care though, at least entirely: The playoffs are do-or-die time or as he put it, “Survive and advance.”
“It’s about doing what you need to do to win these games,” he said. “Last Tuesday’s win was kind of fools gold. We talked about it before the game – We knew it coming in that this game would be different. They play with a different sense of urgency. I knew that [Preston] would play hard.
“We had opportunities and missed [them], and that’s credit to Preston. They made us take shots that we weren’t comfortable taking. But credit to our kids, too. A game like that earlier in the year would’ve crushed us.”
The No. 2-seed Mohigans (13-10) came into the Region I, Section 2 battle with No. 3-seed Preston (12-11), holding of the constantly surging Knights down the stretch, 51-43, to move onto the sectional championship on Thursday.
The win was full of sloppy play that overshadowed the few great moments that hung in the air after the final buzzer, and White knows his team can’t play that way against rival and No.1-seed University on Thursday in the title game.
“[University] very aggressive,” White said. “We have to match their intensity on the glass or we won’t have any shot at that game. We can’t give them link-out, run-out points, either. They love to get out and score in transition. Those are two big things we’ll have to talk about in practice [Wednesday].”
Preston began the night by jumping ahead of Morgantown, but after three turnovers the Knights fell behind 13-7 after the first quarter. The second quarter saw Morgantown buckle down into their 2-3 zone defense to hold the Knights to 2 of 7 shooting from the field, but where the long balls didn’t fall PHS was able to force fouls MHS down low for four free points. Regardless, Morgantown entered the half up 23-15.
The second half saw the Knights bring pressure out of the gate, hitting two free throws, a trey and a layup while forcing a turnover and containing the Mohigans from beyond the arc to cut the lead to three points at 25-22. The fire held for the majority of the third quarter, cutting the MHS lead to two points under the 2-minute mark, but a 5-0 run at the end of the stanza put the Mohigans up 34-28.
The fourth quarter saw Morgantown push the lead to 38-28 early, forcing Preston to rethink its defense and up its press, but MHS kept its distance 10 points up for a majority of the final quarter. But after a few defensive lapses and with 1:44 remaining, the Knights hard cut the lead to five points at 43-38. With elimination on the line, White called timeout to let his girls breathe. Out of the timeout, Cat Wassick took advantage of a wide-open lane to snap the Knights run and get her team back on track. It would be what they needed to take steam away from PHS, and after four straight fouls and a 6 of 7 run at the free throw line, Morgantown escaped the elimination.
In total, Morgantown shot 15 of 56 (26.7%) from the floor and 6 of 30 (20%) from beyond the arc. The Mohigans saving grace came on boards and at the free throw line, as they hit 15 of 18 (83.3%) from the stripe. Kaitlyn Ammons led the team with 20 points, nine of which came at the free throw line. Lindsey Bechtel was the only other player in double figures, netting 11 points.
Preston had a better night in field goal averages but took significantly fewer shots, hitting 10 of 32 from the floor (31.2%) and 5 of 13 (38%) from 3-point land. Further, they hit 18 of 23 (78.2%) from the charity stripe. Tori Garlits led the Knights with 10 points, while Carsynn Sines had nine, seven coming at the line.
“These games are never easy,” White said. “Especially when you’re dealing with a team that’s as young as we are. I’m proud of the kids and their effort to stay with it. I’m super proud of these kids. You take a team with 18 kids and nine of them are freshmen, they’ve won eight straight.”
At season’s end
Despite their season being over, the Knights have a lot to hang onto going into the offseason. First, the girls had to try and keep with a long, five-game road series in the wake of their classmate passing away a few weeks ago and still managed to battle and keep two of those games close. Plus, the grief of losing someone wasn’t just with the students: PHS coach Brian Miller lost a family member and missed four of those five games.
“I’m extremely proud of our kids,” Miller said. “I came back on Friday and I told them I’d spend the weekend studying film from the Morgantown gam last Tuesday and that we’d come in Monday with a plan. We did that, worked on some different double teams on Ammons and tweak things on defense, and they did everything we wanted to do.
“I told them I didn’t know if it would work, but it could give us a chance. They battled so, so hard. I think that’s the best we’ve played in a month.”
There are plenty of things Miller is taking forward into the offseason, but not without the lessons his senior class has taught the younger girls.
“We competed at a high level with some state-powers,” he said. “A lot of times when teams play those [powerhouse teams] they fold. Some are beat before they get out there because of their name – we didn’t do that. We fought tooth and nail, and the seniors were great leaders and teammates. They were there to pick everybody up, and if there’s something I hope the younger ones can take from the older ones is that how good of leaders they were. They tried to make the team family-oriented.”
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