MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — After glancing over the stat sheet of West Virginia’s 88-79 victory Monday against Ohio University, Kysre Gondrezick was the first to say she did not have her best shooting night.
The WVU senior guard missed her first four attempts of the game and 12 of the 21 she took overall.
“I don’t think I shot the ball well at all, but, hey, we’ll take it,” she said.
Then came the fourth quarter, and with WVU trailing, 65-61, with just 8:23 remaining, Gondrezick came alive.
Over the next two minutes, Gondrezick nailed a 3-pointer, scored on a fast-break lay-up and then hit a pull-up jumper that gave the Mountaineers (6-2) a 71-67 lead and WVU was able to pull away from there.
“When I’m going, I’m going,” said Gondrezick, who finished with 24 points and eight assists. “My game is kind of subtle. I don’t like to force it. Coming down to the fourth quarter, I don’t think I did anything different. I might just have taken what the defense gave me and I was able to convert.”
It was Gondrezick’s fifth game this season with 20 or more points.
For much of the game, the WVU Coliseum was a shoot-out at the O.K. Corral of sorts.
While Gondrezick and teammate KK Deans (21 points) handled the bulk of WVU’s scoring, the Bobcats (3-2) saw Cierra Hooks and teammate Erica Johnson combine for 56 points.
Except Johnson was held scoreless after hitting an early 3-pointer in the fourth quarter and Hooks was held without a basket over the final four minutes of the game.
“We were supposed to be denying them in the first half,” WVU head coach Mike Carey said. “We just didn’t do it. I had to emphasize that a little more at halftime. KK took pride in guarding (Johnson) and Madisen (Smith) did a good job against (Hooks), but she kept going in and shooting the ball over top of her. We were finally able to give Madisen some help.”
The Mountaineers, coming off a 78-73 road loss against Oklahoma State, had other stars in this one.
Esmery Martinez recorded her third consecutive double-double (and fifth of the season) with 16 points and 15 rebounds.
“She’s going to have a lot more of them throughout her career,” Carey said. “She was a little tired from playing heavy minutes and tweaked up from the Oklahoma State game, but still had a double-double.”
Smith finished with 10 points and six assists for WVU, which will get back into Big 12 play with a road game at Kansas on Jan. 2.
“I thought the second half was all about heart,” Carey said. “It wasn’t about skill. We had to see if we had enough heart.”
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