MORGANTOWN – One thing that Morgantown girls’ basketball head coach John Fowkes has enjoyed about his team during the opening few weeks of the season is the ability to win in different ways.
In the first two games this season, both blowout victories, MHS duo Kayli Kellogg and Sadaya Jones combined for 101 points in back-to-back days.
On Saturday afternoon, Fowkes and the Mohigans showed they could be confident in leaning on their two returning all-state players and the rest of the roster in a 66-35 victory over Spring Mills.
Jones, who missed most of last week with an illness and played limited minutes on Saturday, and Kellogg, who was also feeling the effects from illness, combined for 11 points against the Cardinals.
But MHS sophomore starter Tatum DeVries and the Mohigans’ bench stepped up for the team. DeVries scored a game-high 19 points with five three-pointers, all coming in the first half, and the MHS bench provided 26 points.
Sophomore Brenna Nelson contributed 10 points, six rebounds, and five assists for the Mohigans as a substitute.
“We had some girls playing for some limited minutes, and I thought everyone really stepped up and played incredibly hard,” Fowkes said. “The girls off of the bench tonight were huge for us. We are hard to beat when we get good contributions from those players. Lucie (Hatcher) is also starting to do what we want her to do offensively, and of course, Tatum was on fire tonight.”
DeVries’ third triple of the game gave MHS a 25-15 lead two minutes into the second quarter. The Mohigans led by five at the end of the first quarter before outsourcing the Cardinals 23-4 in the second for a 41-17 halftime advantage.
“We’ve been throwing the full-court press at people, and it’s still fairly new to some of our girls,” Fowkes said. “We’ve shown flashes of what it can do for us and will continue to try and improve on it.”
MHS had four players with at least three assists in the contest. Fowkes says regardless of who is on the floor at any given time, seeing the ball movement his team displayed on Saturday is crucial to its success.
“We want to see that sort of thing no matter who is out there for us,” he said. “That’s something we’ve been talking about as far as how talented we are and how many of our players can really impact the team positively. It’s hard for other teams to focus on one player for us and that’s what can make the difference for us going forward.”
MHS will be off for the holiday break before traveling to Deep Creek, Md., for a pair of contests next weekend (Dec 27/28).
BOX SCORE
Morgantown 66, Spring Mills 35
SM 13 14 10 8 – 35
MHS 18 23 16 10 – 66
Spring Mills (0-4) – King 1 6-7 8 Homer 2 0-2 5 Dandridge 3 2-2 9 Lomax 5 2-4 12 Green 0 1-2 1
Morgantown (5-1) – DeVries 6 2-2 19 Kellogg 2 4-6 9 Jones 0 2-4 2 Hatcher 5 0-0 10 Messerly 3 0-0 7 Nelson 3 4-4 10 Porter 2 0-0 4 Davis 2 0-0 5
3pt goals made: Spring Mills 2 (Homer 1 Dandridge 1); Morgantown 7 (DeVries 5 Davis 1 Messerly 1)
