CHARLESTON — The reigning champions started the 2023 West Virginia boys’ state basketball tournament off on the right foot Tuesday evening as top-seeded Morgantown topped No. 8 Bridgeport 64-39 in the quarterfinal round.
Despite a sub-par shooting night from the Mohigans (24-2), they used a stout defensive effort to prevail in the tournament’s opening round inside the Charleston Civic Center.
“Sometimes you come down here and you don’t shoot it great in a half or a game or whatever so we need to make sure we make we make offense out of our defense and I thought we did a great job,” MHS coach Dave Tallman said.
MHS shot just 5 of 20 from three-point range in the contest, but scored 38 points in the paint and had 17 points off of 14 Bridgeport turnovers. They also held the Indians (18-8) to just 16 of 49 shooting in the game.
“Morgantown just defensively took it to us,” Bridgeport coach Dave Marshall said. “They’re well-coached, they’ve got athletes up and down the lineup and they’ve got size. They just took us out of anything we wanted to do.”
Bridgeport standout Anthony Spatafore was held to 12 points on 5 of 19 shooting from the floor and 2 of 9 from three.
Like in their meeting in the regular season, Morgantown was able to build up a double-digit lead in the first half, leading 15 after one quarter and 33-18 at halftime. Unlike that regular-season contest, however, the Mohigans never let Bridgeport back into the game in the second half.
“I thought the first time around we played well out of the gate then took our foot off the gas a little bit and settled,” Tallman said. “(Tuesday) we were really solid until the end. I thought we played extremely hard and I thought Cam Danser did an amazing job on Spatafore, who’s a great player.”
Danser said after the game that his main focus in the contest was guarding Spatafore as he trusted his teammates to produce offensively. Danser finished with six points, but senior classmate Brody Davis had a game-high 20 and junior Sharron Young added 12.
Tuesday’s game was just Young’s second since coming back from a wrist injury that had held him out for the entire month of February. Young did not play in the regular-season meeting between the teams and Marshall said he knew Young’s return would make a big impact.
“Coming in, I was more concerned about his defensive presence,” Marshall said. “He’s such an athlete, he plays so hard and he’s so smart. You know they’re going to put him on your point guard and it just makes it harder to get into your offense.”
For Young, he was just happy to be off the bench and on the floor again.
“It felt good to be out there with my teammates,” he said. “They’ve been picking me up the whole time I was out. It just felt like I was back when I was out there like they had my back the whole time.”
Morgantown out-rebounded the Indians 35-28, led by Young and Daivs with seven apiece. The Mohigans also had 18 assists on 25 made field goals.
“We were spoiled last year with the group we had, they were so unselfish and this group is the same,” Tallman said. “Nobody really cares who scores, we have five guys averaging in double figures. It’s hard to gameplan for us because we have so many weapons and we share the rock like crazy.”
Izzy Everett had nine points for MHS and Garrison Kisner scored eight to round out the starting lineup.
Ashton Curry added six behind Spatafore’s 12.
Morgantown advances to Thursday’s semifinal round, where it will play No. 4 Huntington, which defeated South Charleston 67-44.
Morgantown 64, Bridgeport 39
Bridge 8 10 9 12 — 39
MHS 15 18 17 14 — 64
Bridgeport — Spatafore 5 0-1 12; Ayoob 1 0-0 2; Curry 3 0-0 6; Randolph 0 0-0 0; Bifano 1 2-2 4; Sanders 2 0-0 5; Kelley 0 0-1 0; Sickles 2 0-0 5; Michaelis 2 1-1 5.
Morgantown — Danser 3 0-0 6; Everett 3 2-3 9; Young 5 2-4 12; Davis 7 4-4 20; Kisner 4 0-0 8; Neal 0 1-2 1; Shrewsberry 2 0-0 6; Savage 1 0-0 2.
3 Pt. Goals — Bridgeport 5 (Spatafore 2, Sanders 1, Sickles 1, Michaelis 1). Morgantown 5 (Davis 2, Shrewsberry 2, Everett 1).
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