MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The Morgantown girls’ basketball team is picking up steam in the midseason after a slow start. Although one can say it’s because of young age — which is partially true — it’s also because the Mohigans (5-7) love to schedule tough opponents early.
Morgantown started out with a solid season-opening win over Shadyside (Ohio) but dropped the following four games to Lincoln, Fairmont Senior, University and Musselman.
What could raise eyebrows are the back-to-back losses to the Class AA teams to start that skid, but both are top-10 squads coming into the No. 5 and 6 spots, respectively, in the recent AP poll. University and Musselman are self-explanatory.
Morgantown coach Jason White had an idea of how his team could fare this season being senior-less, noting, “You look at the year and you’re playing with house money. You don’t have any seniors, so it’s no one’s banner year. As a coaching staff, we’re approaching this year as, ‘Whatever we get out of this year, we get out of this year.’ ”
He also made it very clear that he wants his young team to face tough opponents to better prepare them for the playoffs.
“As a coach, my philosophy has always been those are the teams you want to play,” he said in that same preseason interview. “You want to know where you are when it comes to the state, and we have the best-of-the-best in our region.”
Another point White hit on is that his team “has the potential to surprise some people,” and that time could be approaching now in the midseason. The Mohigans, after falling to Wheeling Park 58-42 in an uncharacteristic loss, picked up two straight wins over Musselman and Buckhannon-Upshur in blowout fashion, defeating the two teams 74-48 and 51-36, respectively. What may have set off the explosive play was that 16-point loss at the hands of the No. 1 Patriots.
Junior forward Kaitlyn Ammons certainly wasn’t happy that night. Although a known leader of the team, she more so sounded more like one of White’s assistant coaches.
“We said in practice we have to be disciplined on defense and rebounding on both ends of the floor, and we weren’t [against Wheeling Park],” Ammons said. “We let Shanley [Woods] get easy 3s, I myself let Bella [Abernathy] get by me to the basket and got some dumb fouls, and not everyone boxed out and rebounded the way we practiced. Honestly, we played exactly like we practiced, which was the issue. It wasn’t disciplined enough.”
Through the frustration, Ammons noted that the team would likely take that loss and force themselves to be more disciplined moving into the next stretch of games.
“We’re young,” she said. “We’re starting three juniors, a freshman and a sophomore. Our room for mistakes is razor-thin. Our main focus going into the next stretch of games is discipline, focus on the task at hand and execution.”
Following a loss to the same No. 1 Patriots last week, the tune was much different among the Mohigans. They kept the Patriots on their toes that night, coming within five points of them with 1:40 on the clock and with possession of the ball.
“Since the calendar year has turned over, we’re [4-2] with our only losses to No. 1 Wheeling Park,” White said. “We had an opportunity [at Wheeling Park]. We weren’t able to capitalize on that opportunity but our kids are competing and we’re getting better. We’ve preached process over results. It’s about continuing to get better. It’s a two-year process for us since we know long term that we’re not losing anyone.”
Another key factor to take into consideration is that when Ammons was having an off night, fellow juniors Cat Wassick and Berit Johnson would step up. The first Wheeling Park loss was an example of all three icing over for too long, then relying on a big second-half push to try and complete the comeback. In the last few games, all three have been hitting their stride. When that happens, MHS is a hard team to beat.
It’s not just the juniors who contribute. White is lucky to have a different player each night step up to assist the older girls. Lindsay Bechtel, Kerrington Peasak, Alayjah Jones and Mia Henkins all come to White’s mind immediately.
“It’s up and down the roster, every player has helped us in games,” White said. “It’s different kids on different nights. A team can’t focus and try to shut down one kid [when they play us]. This team isn’t near its potential yet, and that’s the scary part [for our opponents]. This team has a lot of room to grow and if we continue to grow, at the end of this thing, we’re going to be a hard out for another team. We can peak at the right time and this team is showing signs [we can do that] in [playoffs].
“Your juniors are going to have to play well, and we’ve been lucky to have two of the three almost every game to give us production. This team practices and plays hard, and I’m proud of them.”
One reason the Mohigans have been successful since the new year began is that, after trying to hide inconsistencies with a zone defense, they’ve gone back to their roots: Tough, bruising man-to-man defense that takes away the opponent’s strength and turns into points off turnovers.
It’s been one of White’s strong points in his seven years at the helm, and he’s happy with the results.
“We’ve kept some zone in, but we’ve done a good job of going back to that man defense,” he said.
Morgantown returns to action at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday against Parkersburg South (2-10), looking to extend its new year run.
