BLACKSVILLE — It means something to go out the right way.
The Clay-Battelle girls’ basketball team finished their regular season the right way Thursday with a gutsy 38-20 win over visiting Weirton Madonna inside Statler-Wilson Gymnasium.
“It’s perfect,” CB coach David Joyce said. “We couldn’t have finished in a better way than the way we finished right here. It’s not even a .500 season this year, but coming out with this win, the girls were so excited. Sometimes that’s all you hope for, how much cheering you get in the locker room afterward.”
Also going out the right way was the Cee-Bees’ (8-13) lone starting senior, Reagan Darling, who scored a game-high 17 points in what will be her final home game. All eight of Darling’s field goals were the result of playing hard, whether it was hustling up the court in transition, grabbing offensive rebounds or scrapping with Blue Don defenders in the post.
“This is her last night as a senior here on our floor and she hustled her tail off,” Joyce said. “She played hard, the girls found her and she finished. That’s big, she doesn’t always finish but she finished (Thursday) well.”
With Darling leading the scoring, the Cee-Bees played rough-and-tumble defense all night and held Madonna (4-17) to just five made field goals.
Joyce said his team’s focus was on guarding Madonna’s Julia Wingett and Shea McCoy on the perimeter, which they did near perfectly. Wingett and McCoy each had just one field goal on the night, Wingett’s a three-pointer, although McCoy went to the foul line a total of 16 times, making eight.
“We focused on two of them,” Joyce said. “Other than foul shots, we kind of shut them down on the outside. That’s really what it took.”
McCoy finished with a team-high 10 points and Wingett had just three.
The Blue Dons came out of the gates wanting to press Clay-Battelle, but the Cee-Bees were unbothered, opening the contest with a 9-0 scoring run.
“We score better out of a full-court press than we do in a half-court offense a lot of times,” Joyce said. “That wasn’t really an issue.”
That turned into an 11-5 advantage after the first quarter and a 26-13 lead at the break. Clay-Battelle only scored 12 total points in the second half, but they held Madonna to only seven to close out the win.
Behind Darling’s 17, Elyse Moore scored nine on a trio of three-pointers and Laikyn Dalton finished with six.
With the regular season in the rearview, the Cee-Bees will next play in their sectional semifinal on Tuesday. The Cee-Bees will travel to Doddridge County for a 7 p.m. tip.
Clay-Battelle 38, Madonna 20
Mad 5 8 4 3 — 20
CB 11 15 6 6 — 38
Madonna — Wingett 1 0-0 3; McCoy 1 8-16 10; Berkhimer 2 0-0 4; Cody 1 1-2 3.
C-B — Hennen 2 0-0 4; Dalton 2 2-6 6; E. Moore 3 0-0 9; 1 0-0 2; Darling 8 1-2 17; LaPoe 0 0-1 0.
3 Pt. Goals — Madonna 1 (Wingett). Clay-Battelle 3 (E. Moore).
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