BLACKSVILLE — The Clay Battelle girls’ basketball team fell to Doddridge County on Thursday evening inside the Statler Wilson Gymnasium.
The Cee-Bees (2-4) found themselves tied with the Bulldogs (8-0) 11-all at the 6:08 mark in the second quarter and trailed by single-digits at the half behind some solid defensive play, but the visitors used a 32-point second half to secure a 51-29 road victory.
CB senior Laikyn Dalton led the scoring with 17 points with a pair of triples. The Bulldogs were led in scoring by Tenley Paugh’s 14 points, while nine different players recorded at least one field goal.
“Our offense can get a little stagnant quickly and our flow got thrown off against their man-to-man defense,” CB head coach David Joyce said. “Defensively we had a plan and it worked early but they wore us down by the end of the game and those girls are good basketball players.”
The Cee-Bees didn’t allow an early 9-2 deficit get out of reach, as a scoring run of 6-2 ended the first quarter to cut the Bulldogs lead to one possession at 11-8.
One of Dalton’s two triples in the game tied the contest at 11 early in the second quarter, but C-B didn’t score another point before halftime. Doddridge took advantage with an 8-0 scoring run to end the half but led by just eight points, 19-11.
The third quarter would prove to make the difference in the contest as the Bulldogs outscored the Cee-Bees 18-7 within the frame. As mentioned by Joyce, the visitors used the fastbreak to their advantage and were able to turn C-B turnovers into layups on the other end.
The halftime lead of eight became 12 quickly in the third, then 17 with just over 90 seconds to play until the fourth.
C-B had its highest-scoring quarter in the fourth (11) but the deficit was already too great to overcome.
“I’m proud of the effort, Laikyn is leading us and finding good looks,” Joyce said. “Her defense can be better than her offense sometimes which says something from her total tonight. We have some positives to take away from the first half, for sure.”
BOX SCORE
DC 11 8 18 14 – 51
CB 8 3 7 11 – 29
Doddridge County- Paugh 4 3-6 14 Trent 2 1-2 5 Cheeseman 1 3-10 5 Lipscomb 2 0-0 5 Adams 1 4-4 5 Carrell 1 0-0 2 Williams 3 1-2 7 Holtz 1 0-0 2 Williams 1 0-0 2.
Clay Battelle – Hennen 0 2-2 2 DeBolt 2 0-0 4 Dalton 5 5-10 17 Moore 1 0-0 2 Hellyer 2 0-0 4.
3-Pt. Goals – Doddridge 4 (Paugh 3 Lipscomb 1); Clay-Battelle 2 (Dalton 2).
