CHARLESTON — The Morgantown High girls’ basketball team defeated Spring Mills 49-25 in the quarterfinals of the Class AAAA state basketball tournament Thursday afternoon in Charleston at the Coliseum and Convention Center.
MHS (21-2) was led by sophomore Sofia Wassick in almost every major stat. Wassick posted a near triple-double, finishing with 18 points, 10 rebounds and six assists in the game.
“Are you sure that wasn’t a typo?” head coach Jason White said jokingly as he heard the rebounding number for his guard.
Junior Lindsay Bechtel contributed 15 points herself to combine with Wassick for 33 of their team’s 49 points.
The game began slowly, with both teams working out their nerves of the big stage. Spring Mills dictated tempo with a slower-paced approach and found open shots. Freshman Kilah Dandridge scored six points in the quarter on two triples as the Cardinals found themselves in a deadlock with the Mohigans at 10 apiece after one.
Scoring became scarcer in the second. SMHS held a 2-point lead when Wassick went on her own scoring run of six points, including a lay-up that was immediately followed by a steal and assist to Bechtel to put MHS ahead by four at halftime, 19-15.
Whatever adjustments White and his staff made with the team at halftime worked perfectly for MHS as the third quarter turned into the Bechtel and Wassick show.
The duo scored 11 of their team’s 15 points in the third and helped the Mohigans build a double-digit lead for the first time in the game leading by 16, 36-20.
“I thought we did a better job in the second half of offensive rebounding the ball,” White said. “We became a little more patient on offense, made the extra pass and saw the ball go in the hoop.”
Spring Mills found offense hard to come by in the second half, only scoring 10 total points in the third and fourth combined. MHS pushed the tempo and got into the style of game they prefer to play.
“If we don’t get a layup off of our transition game then we really look to get into and run our ‘stuff’,” White said. “The two sets that we ran we scored off of, but we just didn’t get into that offense very much in the quarter.”
The Mohigans’ defense in the second half made the difference and lifted them to a victory over the Cardinals 49-25, to advance to the semifinals of the girls AAAA state tournament.
Morgantown will meet Wheeling Park for the fifth time this season. MHS has taken three out of the four games, with the most recent being in the Region I sectionals two weeks ago 55-45, inside the Rowdie Center. The Mohigans and Patriots will tip-off at 9 p.m. Friday from the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
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Morgantown (20-3)
Sofia Wassick 14 0-0 18 Lindsay Bechtel 11 1-2 15 Sadaya Jones 3 3-6 5 Lily Jordan 9 0-4 4 Mia Henkins 5 0-0 3 Kate Hawkins 4 0-0 2 Revaya Sweeney 2 0-0 2
Spring Mills (15-10)
Kilah Dandridge 10 0-0 10 Mya Griffin 3 0-0 4 Olivia Bolduc 7 1-2 4 Ella Hawkins 2 1-2 3 Ashiya Domer 6 0-0 3 Corin Edsell 4 1-2 1
MORGANTOWN 10 9 15 15 – 49
SPRING MILLS 10 5 5 5 – 25
Three-pointers: MHS 3 (Bechtel 2, Henkins 1); SMHS 4 (Dandridge 2, Domer 1, Bolduc 1)
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