MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — As the girls’ high school basketball postseason tournaments begin around the state this week, the No. 8 University High team emerged victorious in its Region I, Section 2 semifinal match-up against Buckhannon-Upshur, 43-34, on Tuesday.
The Hawks’ 10-point win over the Buccaneers a month ago had little bearing this time around as Tuesday’s contest was full of quality defense.
It was University’s smothering defense, especially in the second half, that propelled it to notch the hard-fought victory.
The Hawks (16-7) came out extra jittery offensively to start the game, while the Lady Buccaneers seemed to have that infectious ‘nothing to lose’ attitude.
The result was multiple UHS turnovers and poor shot selection, allowing BU (13-10) to forge a surprising 8-2 lead six minutes into the first quarter.
Hawks senior Mallory Napolillo drove the length of the floor for a lay-up to break the skid, and the subsequent UHS run extended to 10-0 and its first lead at 10-8 two minutes into the second quarter.
The Lady Bucs roared back with a 9-0 run of their own, highlighted by 3-pointers from Brooklyn Maxwell and McKenzie Reynolds to take a 25-18 advantage into the break.
“I was a little worried in the locker room,” admitted University senior Ashten Boggs, who led all scorers with 16 points. “We weren’t mad at ourselves, or worried, or upset or anything. We didn’t seem to have much emotion at all — until Coach Price reminded us that if we lost this game, our season was over. That definitely got our attention and we picked it up our intensity in the second half.”
That intensity showed up all over the floor: The cuts were sharper and the passing was crisp, which led to many more points in the paint for the Hawks.
Seniors Napolillo, Boggs and Coen were much more active with their interior defense and rebounding. As a result, UHS scored the first nine points of the half to take a 27-25 lead with 3 minutes left in the third.
In fact, had Maxwell not hit a triple one minute later, Buckhannon-Upshur might’ve gone scoreless for the entire quarter.
As it was, the Hawks took back the lead for good with two late baskets at 31-28.
More tenacious defense led to more transition baskets from UHS in the final quarter, including an acrobatic lay-up from guard Emily Sharkey — two of her six fourth quarter points gave the Hawks their biggest lead of the night at 43-21 with two minutes left.
Only a final triple from the Lady Bucs with 16 seconds left got the final margin to single digits, but the game was on ice by then.
While Price was quite pleased with his team’s second half defense that surrendered just nine points, he was simply at a loss to explain their shaky start.
“You know, sometimes as a coach you just can’t explain why your kids play the way they do,” he said. “We’ve been hit hard by illness and injuries, but so have they, so really I don’t know why we were so flat. We couldn’t seem to do the simple things right, and maybe that made us press and try to do too much.
“In any case, our intensity picked up quite a bit after the break, and getting some efficient run-outs and easy baskets out of transition seemed to calm us down.
“I thought we played downhill much better in the second half as well. We didn’t make a 3 all night, but I actually think getting the ball to the rack fits our game better anyway. That’s what we’re all about — playing hard for 32 minutes, great defensive intensity and attacking the rim. And we’d better bring those trademarks of ours to our gym on Thursday. That’s for a title against your crosstown rival, so you’d better bring it.”
With the win, University advances to the sectional final at 7 p.m. Thursday against arch-rival Morgantown.
