BLACKSVILLE, W.Va. — In the game of basketball, there’s something special about a double-digit lead. Hold it, and you feel in complete control. Trail by it, and your sole purpose in life is to whittle it down to single digits without panicking. Lose it, and legs get heavy, arms rubbery, hands sweaty, and the basket shrinks to the size of a shot glass as the other team seems to bear down on you like a runaway train.
In the second half of Saturday afternoon’s consolation game of the girls’ basketball West Virginia Hometown Invitational Tournament between Montcalm and Clay-Battelle, the Cee-Bees saw their 14-point lead cut to 11, and the Generals had six straight chances to get underneath that magic barrier.
But they never got the job done, and Joleigh Sollars nailed a dagger of a 3-pointer early in the final quarter to help Clay-Battelle survive with a 40-30 win.
The Cee-Bees (12-7) used an effective two-woman game between Sollars and Liv Ammons — both game-high scorers with 16 — and their hot 3-point shooting to grow an early lead against the Generals (8-9). Montcalm had trouble solving C-B’s sagging 2-3 zone, allowing the Cee-Bees to sprint out to a 16-2 bulge late in the first quarter. Finally, MHS’s Olivia Alexander buried a pair of 3s to cut the lead to eight in the second quarter, but for the rest of the half, the Cee-Bees kept the game under control, and held a 26-12 advantage heading into the break.
Both teams came out icy cold from the floor in the third, until a 5-point mini run from the Generals got it to 30-21 with 2:00 left in the quarter. While Ammons and the Cee-Bees continued to come up empty offensively, Montcalm could not solve the C-B defense for five-straight possessions to end the third, and another at the start of the final quarter. Finally, Sollars stepped into a triple from the right wing and swished it. It was her final bucket of the game, but it essentially put the game out of reach. Only a pair of Megan Lester late baskets — she led the Generals with 13 and, along with Ammons, were named game MVPs — got the final score to its 10-point gap.
“I wasn’t sure what we’d be facing with this team,” C-B coach David Price said after the win, “but they looked big down low. So we tried to get an inside/outside game going, and we were fortunate that Liv and Joleigh shot so well in the first half.”
The Cee-Bees return to action on Monday as they host rival Notre Dame at 7:30 p.m.
