WHEELING – The season’s first coaches poll from the WVSACA came just in time to set up the storyline for Tuesday’s Wheeling Park-Morgantown showdown inside The Palace on the Hill.
Morgantown (4-1) was ranked No. 1 in the poll, while Wheeling Park (4-1) was ranked No. 3. Playing before their home crowd, the Patriots dispatched the Mohigans 55-45 behind a strong defensive effort and 32 points from senior guard Alexis Bordas.
Even with the game being a No. 1 vs. No. 3 matchup, it was also a state championship rematch of last year’s title game, and another chapter in a longstanding conference rivalry.
“Morgantown’s always a big game,” Wheeling Park head coach Ryan Young said. “We’re a big game for them, they’re a big game for us. We both have new teams so it was going to be interesting to see how we matched up. I know they were down Sadaya [Jones], she’s a good basketball player so I’m sure we’re going to have to give an even better effort next time. I couldn’t be more proud of how hard our girls fought.”
“You just saw an inexperienced team come into the defending state champs’ home, ranked number one, and [Wheeling Park] played hard,” Morgantown head coach John Fowkes said. “I think they played upset basketball, they were mad that we were number one and they came in and they pushed us around the gym a little bit tonight.”
Bordas finished with a 32-point, 11-rebound double-double, while fellow senior Maggie Hupp had 15 points and 11 rebounds for a double-double of her own. Hailey Downer also had eight rebounds.
“We said coming into it that we had to play harder than them,” Young said. “I don’t know if we played harder, because [Morgantown] played hard, but we knew that if we won the rebounding battle we’d have a chance at winning. We wanted to limit our turnovers, and we didn’t do that, but I think we made up for that with our margin on the rebounds. We just have to put together a full game where we’re taking care of the basketball and doing all the little things like rebounding, getting scoring contributions from others, and once we do that I think we can be a good team.”
Wheeling Park won the rebounding battle but lost the turnover battle 23-15.
The Patriots controlled the boards while also keeping the Mohigans from gaining traction with fast-breaks, forcing Morgantown into one shot from their half court offense for most of the night.
“As far as Morgantown, they’re a very good basketball team, they’re hard to defend. The one thing we can do is continue to get better defensively. We can become a very good defensive team. I think that’s what we’re going to focus on and let the offense come as we go.”
Morgantown had six fast break points in the game.
Morgantown was led by sophomore Kayli Kellogg, who scored 18 points while adding four rebounds and three steals. The Mohigans and Patriots both are coming into the season with new looks to their lineup, with four new starters on either side as compared to last year’s title game.
“We started three sophomores, a freshman and a senior,” Fowkes said. “The most experienced player out there was our sophomore, Kayli Kellogg. The other three– Tatum [DeVries] wasn’t in West Virginia, Brenna Nelson was playing JV and Sydney Deusenberry was playing middle school basketball at this time last year. It was a good experience for our young squad.”
Morgantown took the first lead of the game, but the advantage bounced back and forth four times in the first quarter and Wheeling Park ended the first quarter ahead 13-11. After Morgantown tied the game 13-13, Wheeling Park took a lead for good on a 9-2 run fueled by Alexis Bordas scoring seven points including an and-one conversion. Wheeling Park’s lead had grown to 14, the score at 33-19 going into the locker rooms.
The lead stayed fairly static the whole second half, with Morgantown getting as close as eight in one point in the third quarter, 35-27 on a steal and eventual score by Lucie Hatcher with 5:10 to play in the frame.
Wheeling Park rallied to lead 45-33 going into the fourth quarter. Morgantown out-scored Wheeling Park 26-22 in the second half.
“The first half we didn’t respond, the second half we settled down,” Fowkes said. “I thought we played a lot better in the second half.”
“There were times it looked like we were going to let them dip into that lead a little bit more, but everytime we made a play,” Young said. “And that’s a sign of growth as a team. We had contributions from everybody.”
Tatum DeVries scored seven points while Brenna Nelson scored six to go with a game-high four steals.
Wheeling Park next faces Indian Creek on the road Wednesday while Morgantown will return home to play Spring Mills on Saturday.
By Nick Henthorn (The Intelligencer)
BOX SCORE
Wheeling Park 55, Morgantown 45
MORGANTOWN – Deusenberry 2 1-2 5 DeVries 3 1-2 7; Kellogg 7 3-4 18; Nelson 3 0-0 6; Messerly 2 0-1 4; Hatcher 2 1-2 5; Totals 19 6-11 45. WHEELING PARK – Miller 1 1-4 3; Hupp 7 0-0 15; Brinker 1 1-2 3; Downer 1 0-0 2; Bordas 11 9-9 32; Totals 21 11-15 55.
Three-point goals: Morgantown 1 (Kellogg). Wheeling Park 2 (Hupp, Bordas).
