MORGANTOWN — What initially had the makings of a high-scoring, action-packed game ground to a halt in the second and third quarters as the Morgantown girls’ basketball team dispatched visiting John Marshall 61-40 inside the Rowdy Center Wednesday evening.
The Mohigans celebrated Senior Night Wednesday as their six-person senior class notched the 59th win of their four-year careers.
“These girls have been for four years, they’ve worked their butts off for four years to get better,” MHS coach Doug Goodwin said. “I was watching game film from last year and you can see just their development from last year to this year with how much bigger they’ve gotten and how much more confident they’ve become with the ball in their hand. Their confidence has grown so much, I’ll be sad to see this group go.”
All six MHS seniors scored in the game, led by Mia Henkins (15), Revaya Sweeny (12) and Lindsay Bechtel (10).
A 22-10 lead for MHS after the first quarter seemed to be the start of a shootout between the Mohigans (9-3) and Monarchs (13-5) but the outpouring of points slowed to a drip in the second quarter and the well all but ran dry in the third quarter.
After hitting five three-pointers and scoring 22 points in the first, MHS outscored JM 9-8 in the second quarter and 9-3 in the third for a 40-21 lead. In that third quarter, the teams combined for just one field goal in the first five minutes.
“It’s always nice getting the W on nights when it’s not always going your way,” Goodwin said after the game.
The culprit of the slowed pace was John Marshall’s 1-3-1 zone defense, which the Monarchs switched to after the first frame.
“We struggled a little bit with their zone, attacking the gaps and making the right pass,” Goodwin said. “Their defense gave us little fits, we didn’t attack gaps at times. Those are things we know we’ve got to work on.”
The scoring picked back up in the final frame as MHS made eight field goals, as many as they had in the middle quarters combined, and scored 21 points en route to the 61-40 victory.
The Mohigans made things just as hard on their visitors as John Marshall struggled to maintain possession and find good shots throughout the game. The Monarchs scored 19 points in the fourth, but that came on the back of 8-of-10 free throw shooting in the frame.
Henkins scored a team-high 15 points to lead MHS while Sweeny came off the bench to add 12. They each hit multiple three-pointers as Henkins connected three times from deep and Sweeny sent through four from range.
“Revaya dropped in four threes for us (Wednesday) and on the last one, I don’t even think the net moved,” Goodwin said. “The girls have shot really well from the outside. Between Kate (Hawkins), Lindsay, Mia, Sofia (Wassick), they’re all shooting well. They’ve all got the green light to let it go if it’s an open look.”
Sophomore forward Kaitlyn Blake led the young Monarchs with a game-high 20 points, doing all of her damage down low. John Marshall has 13 wins this season despite starting two freshmen in the backcourt and playing two more off the bench. One of those first-year players, Rilee Storm, finished second on the team with nine points, matched by junior Kayli Derrow.
The Mohigans have a tough draw to end the week as they will have a rematch with cross-town rival University on Friday, just six days after defeating the Hawks on Bakers Ridge last week. MHS will then host Class AAAA No. 3 Cabell Midland on Saturday.
Goodwin said it will be important for his team to work on the areas where they struggled against JM before Friday.
“We’ve got two tough games coming up and I’m sure they’re going to get their hands on game film and see what worked well for John Marshall at times and what didn’t work well for us,” he said.
Morgantown 61, John Marshall 40
JM 10 8 3 19 — 40
MHS 22 9 9 21 — 61
JM — Derrow 3 3-7 9; Storm 3 2-2 9; Babiczuk 1 0-0 2; Blake 6 8-9 20.
MHS — Wassick 1 3-4 5; Jordan 3 1-1 7; Henkins 5 2-2 15; Hawkins 1 0-0 3; Bechtel 5 0-0 10; Sweeny 4 0-0 12; Shipps 1 0-0 2; Anderson 1 0-0 2; A. Smith 2 0-0 5.
3 Pt. Goals — John Marshall 1 (Storm). Morgantown 9 (Sweeny 4, Henkins 3, Hawkins 1, A. Smith 1).
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