MORGANTOWN — The University girls’ basketball team wants to make it to the state tournament this season. Any doubts that they can took a big hit Thursday as the homestanding Hawks knocked off visiting Wheeling Park 65-57 on their home court.
“This feels amazing, we’ve been practicing so hard for this,” said junior Ella Simpson, who led UHS with 20 points. “We want to make it to states this year and this is one of our biggest competitors. To beat them feels amazing and it just proves we can surprise people and we can make it all the way.”
The Hawks (4-1) knocked off the Patriots (3-1), state semifinalists last season, on the back of an extreme team effort that shined all night long.
“Without that effort, this is a different story,” UHS coach Nick Lusk said. “We just came in with such a great effort, everybody that played today just gave great effort and that was the difference I thought.”
After Park led 14-13 following the first quarter, it was that effort that shifted momentum the way of the hosts. The Hawks stopped turning the ball over against Park’s full-court press while turning up the heat on their own defensive end. Using a 19-5 scoring run, UHS turned a 19-15 deficit into a 34-24 halftime lead.
“I just think that it took us a minute to settle into the game and get into our groove,” Simpson said. “After that, we just really played well together as a team. Everyone contributed on offense and defense and it was just a good team game.”
University scored the final nine points of the half to pull away while holding Wheeling Park to just four field goals in the quarter.
“I thought we wore them down a little bit,” Lusk said. “We’re pretty deep on our bench, I can go nine or 10 deep, so I can flow them in and out and I thought we did that nicely in the first half.
“I think our bench is so strong that I can rotate people in and we don’t drop off. I think that’s key for us.”
In the third quarter, University had so thoroughly beaten Park’s press defense that the Patriots stopped deploying it.
“We practice against the press every day, Simpson said. “We switch it up, do different things against different presses and just really try to calm down and work the passes that are there. As long as you stay calm, you can beat any press.”
The slower tempo helped the Patriots work back into the game and cut University’s lead to 45-38 entering the fourth quarter.
You won’t keep a team as talented as Wheeling Park down forever though and the Patriots came out in the final frame firing. Sophomore Lala Woods scored 12 of her 14 points in the fourth as Park used an eight-point run to cut the lead to 49-46 with about five minutes left to play.
“We just told them to relax and battle through it,” Lusk said. “We took the one timeout with about five minutes and I said ‘just play hard for five minutes and if we do that the outcome will be what we want it to be.’”
Park cut the lead to just two a few minutes later, but University stopped turning the ball over on offense and hit 7-of-10 free throws in the final quarter to seal the victory.
“We just needed a minute to calm down and get back into it,” Simpson said. “You can’t let stuff like that affect you, we were still in control of the game — I think we were in control of the game the entire time — and we just needed to get the ball back in our hands and play the way that we know how to play.”
Senior Emily Sharkey punctuated the victory with one final steal and a layup to push University’s lead to seven in the waning seconds.
“This is big for us, this is big for our program,” Lusk said. “We talked about a culture change this year. We were so close on a lot of games last year and we just wanted to get over the hump and I think they’re buying in and they’re doing that.”
Simpson led University with 20 points on six field goals and 8-of-9 shooting from the line. Hannah Stemple finished second with 16 but six Hawks scored multiple field goals in the contest. Sharkey and Eden Gibson each finished with nine points.
Alexis Bordas led the visitors with 15 points while Woods finished with 14. The Patriots, one of the most dangerous shooting teams in the state, finished with just four three-pointers.
A large difference in the game came at the free throw line, where University shot 15-of-21 and Park shot just 5-of-8.
University will take more than a full week off before getting another shot to prove they are state tournament worthy against cross-town rival Morgantown on the road next Friday.
University 65, Wheeling Park 57
WP 14 10 14 19 — 57
UHS 13 21 11 20 — 65
WP — Abraham 3 0-0 7; Huffman 2 0-0 4; Daugherty 3 1-2 9; Bordas 7 1-2 15; Woods 6 1-2 14; Delk 0 2-2 2; Heller 3 0-0 6.
UHS — Sharkey 4 0-1 9; Gibson 4 1-2 9; Byers 2 1-2 5; Simpson 6 8-9 20; Stemple 5 5-6 16; Weaver 1 0-0 2; Boateng 2 0-0 4; Maisel 0 0-1 0.
3 Pt. Goals — Wheeling Park 4 (Daugherty 2, Abraham 1, Woods 1). University 2 (Sharkey 1, Stemple 1).
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