MORGANTOWN — The WVU women’s basketball team made history Tuesday night inside the Coliseum with its 82-59 victory against Texas Tech.
The No. 22 Mountaineers became just the third team in program history to win 20 of their first 22 games and WVU head coach Mark Kellogg became the first rookie coach to do the same.
“Fastest to get to 20 wins, that’s remarkable in our first year,” Kellogg said. “It means something, but we’ll worry about that once the season is over.”
WVU joined the 2009-10 team and the 1991-92 team, which also reached 20 wins in just 22 games.
The 1991-92 team may be the most historic in WVU’s history. Led by All-American Rosemary Kosiorek, that season stands as the only time the Mountaineers advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament.
That wasn’t on the mind of J.J. Quinerly on this night, though. WVU’s star junior guard — in a way only she could put it — is focused more on this team creating its own history.
“For us, it’s just about us right now,” she said after scoring 21 points through three quarters and then resting on the bench in the fourth. “We’re in control of our own destiny.”
That destiny right now has the Mountaineers (20-2, 9-2 Big 12) in a tie for second place with Kansas State in the Big 12 with a marquee road matchup against No. 18 Baylor on Saturday.
WVU will take a seven-game winning streak into Waco, Texas.
“This was the part of the schedule that we looked at and identified, if we want to make some noise, then we had to get through this in a nice fashion,” Kellogg said. “I don’t think you ever think you’re going to win seven in a row in the Big 12, but we had to make some noise to be in the hunt.
“It can change in a hurry, too. I’m not naive to that. I know how quickly it can change. You just have to enjoy it and get to the next one.”
WVU made noise against Texas Tech (16-8, 5-6) in the third quarter, taking a 40-28 halftime lead and turning it into a 70-38 blowout.
“That third quarter was a disaster,” Texas Tech head coach Kritsa Gerlich said.
Quinerly had 11 of her 21 points in the quarter and Kylee Blacksten scored eight of her 10 points.
Overall, Kyah Watson tied her career high with 19 points and she added eight rebounds, four assists and three steals over 30 minutes.
All of it led to a piece of history for the Mountaineers.
“I saw what kind of team we had over the summer, so I was expecting good things,” Quinerly said. “Maybe not this, but I saw a lot of good things.”
Now it up to WVU to go for even more.
“We’ll see if we can go do something special,” Kellogg said. “If you look back at my career, I think we’ve set the records for the most wins in school history, so it’s not something that’s unfamiliar for me. Doing it in year one and you’re the third coach in three years, there was an unknown to that.
“Yeah, we’ve had some breaks go our way, but the kids bought in, and they fit the style we like. I think that’s the beauty of it. I’m just kind of going along with it a little bit.”
