MORGANTOWN — The Trinity and Morgantown girls’ basketball teams kicked off the G-Force Holiday Classic on Friday night at MHS, and while the No. 4 Class AAAA Mohigans eventually pulled away from the Class AA Warriors to win 66-41, there was no mistaking this was a competitive match-up.
Morgantown (5-0) came out in a 1-3-1 zone, but Trinity’s offense did a nice job against it, and when Kyndel Kisner drilled her first of three triples on the night (on her way to a team high 12 points), the Warriors (4-2) had forged a surprising 9-6 lead midway through the first. However, the combination of a switch back to their signature man defense and some improved shooting powered the Mohigans to an 8-2 run to close out the first quarter for a 14-11 lead. MHS continued in man and controlled the boards in the second quarter, leading to a devastating 16-2 run and a commanding 32-17 lead at the break.
In the second half, Trinity continued to hang around, putting together some effective offensive halfcourt sets and were able to “lose” each quarter by just five points, bolstered by some hot shooting from Maggie Mercure, who finished with 11. For the Mohigans, nine players scored, led by game MVP Sadaya Jones’ 16, who dropped a three-ball in the first half while also turning in a strong performance in the paint including 7 of 8 from the line. MHS also got the usual 15 from speedy, reliable guard Sofia Wassick, and forward Lily Jordan also reached double figures with 10.
After the game, Trinity coach Mike Baldy told his to keep their heads up, to not be discouraged one bit.
“We play every game to win, of course,” he said, “but the reality is that Morgantown is really, really good — and they have about 3,000 more kids that attend their school than we do. Yet we played them pretty even for long stretches, and we scored 41 points, which is 13 more than anyone else has all year against them. So we’re proud of what we did out there.
“Rebounding hurt us tonight and that gives us a definite point of emphasis to work on moving forward. Look, we want to win a state championship, and that means playing against very good teams, so we will play anybody. I wanted us to come out of this game confident, mentally tough, and not star-struck. We did that, and that can only help us down the road.”
MHS coach Jason White let his team know that, while a win is a win is a win, slow starts and defensive lack of detail will not bode well if it continues.
“We could come up with a 1,000 different reasons why we didn’t play our best game today,” he said. “We’ve had sickness go through our team. We didn’t shoot it well early. We might’ve been looking toward our game against Wheeling Park next week. But the reality is, it doesn’t matter. You only have 22 chances to show what kind of team you are, and we need to embrace that and try to be at our best with every opportunity we get. We just have to do a better job defensively, come out with more movement on offense, and finish better. It’s always better to win and learn, but if we continue to play like this, we will lose and learn for sure.”
In a battle between two Top 5 Class AAAA state powerhouses, Morgantown hosts Wheeling Park at 7:30 p.m. Thursday night, while Trinity is off until Dec. 29 when it travels to the Mapletown (Pa.) Holiday Tournament.
Trinity 11 6 13 11 – 41
Morgantown 14 18 18 16 – 66
TRINITY (4-2)
Jenna Barnett 1 0-1 2 Kyndel Kisner 4 1-2 12 Ella Lynch 1 0-0 2 SuCora Brown 2 1-2 5 Olivia Austin 2 0-0 4 Avonna Brown 1 3-6 5 Maggie Mercure 5 0-0 11 Totals 16 5-11 41
MORGANTOWN (5-0)
Mia Henkins 1 2-2 5 Lily Jordan 4 2-7 10 Sofia Wassick 6 2-2 15 Makayla Chipps 1 0-0 2 Sadaya Jones 4 7-8 16 Lindsay Bechtel 3 2-2 8 Kate Hawkins 1 2-2 4 Abby Smith 2 0-0 4 Kerrington Peasak 1 0-0 2 Totals 23 17-23 66
Three-pointers – TCS 4 (Kisner 3, Mercure), MHS 3 (Henkins, Jones, Wassick)
