CHARLESTON — The Morgantown boys’ basketball team secured its second-straight appearance in the Class AAAA championship game after defeating South Charleston 58-42 on Friday in the semifinal round at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
Both the Mohigans and Black Eagles began the semifinal completely different from the quarterfinals. MHS scored 15 straight to open against Musselman and SCHS traded baskets with George Washington the entire opening quarter.
Through six minutes of play Friday, the score was just 4-2 in favor of the Black Eagles. MHS took the lead on a triple by Cam Danser off the bench. A lay-up by Modrell Dean stole the lead back for SCHS. However, an Alec Poland 3 beat the buzzer to give the Mohigans the one-score advantage at 8-6 after one.
MHS got back to its ways to open the second quarter. Danser came off the bench and hit his second 3 that ignited a 7-0 scoring run for the Mohigans that extended their lead to 9 at 15-6.
“Like coach (Dave Tallman) said, when my team made the extra pass, I wanted to make sure to knock the open shots down,” Danser said of his impact off the bench in the first half. Danser scored 12 points on a perfect 4 of 4 shooting, including three triples.
Baskets were traded for the next few possessions, but a pair of Sha-Ron Young free throws and SCHS turnovers kept the lead at nine for the Mohigans at 19-10 with two minutes to play in the half. Both teams were shooting just above 30% from the field with the difference being three MHS triples to none for the Black Eagles.
“I think the biggest difference was our defense,” Tallman said of his team effort against the talented SCHS offense. “Everyone wants to talk about how good our offense is but we’ve really been working on our defense more for about 3-4 weeks now since sectionals and I’m really proud of my team’s effort tonight.”
The Black Eagles got their first 3, however, just before the break from Christian Goebel, allowing his team to keep the deficit within 10 at 21-14 going into halftime.
A Wayne Harris 3-pointer opened the second half for SCHS the same way it closed the first. MHS got two lay-ups to keep a 6-point lead but the Black Eagles began to get hot as Bryson Smith and Cayden Faucett hit from deep in back-to-back possessions that tied the game at 25 a piece. A 7-2 Mohigans run built another lead to five with two minutes to play, 32-27. Harris also picked up his fourth personal foul and sat the rest of the quarter.
MHS took advantage of the absence of Harris with a 9-0 scoring run to end the quarter that gave them the lead at 41-27 with the final quarter looming.
Halfway through the fourth, each team found scoring but MHS still held a significant advantage at 51-36 with 3:30 to play in the game. Motion offense was in effect for the Mohigans, forcing SCHS to foul in order to get the ball back offensively. Each team added a few more points giving us a final score of 58-42 in favor of the Mohigans. Young led all scorers with 19 points, going 11 of 13 from the free-throw line. Harris led the Black Eagles with 17 points on 7 of 9 shooting and six assists.
“We grinded it out tonight,” Tallman said. On Thursday, “we shot it well and heard about it all day, we made the adjustment today after not shooting well to start and it worked out. These guys love each other and they don’t care who scores at the end of the day.”
MHS advances to the Class AAAA championship game against Parkersburg South. Tip-off is set for 8 p.m. Saturday.
Morgantown (22-4)
Sha-Ron Young 10 11-13 19 Alec Poland 9 4-4 13 Cam Danser 4 1-2 12 Brooks Gage 10 3-4 10 Jalen Goins 3 0-0 4 Brody Davis 6 0-0 0
South Charleston (21-6)
Wayne Harris 9 1-2 17 Bryson Smith 5 1-2 7 Mondrell Dean 8 1-1 7 Cayden Faucett 8 0-0 5 Christian Goebel 2 0-0 3 Xavier Bausley 1 0-0 2 Zavian Murray 0 1-1 1
MORGANTOWN 8 13 20 17 – 58
SOUTH CHARLESTON 6 8 13 15 – 42
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