MORGANTOWN — There were enough reasons Tuesday night to believe the 15th-ranked WVU women’s basketball team had just lost to rival Pitt.
The Mountaineers were whistled for 23 fouls, while star guard J.J. Quinerly struggled with her 3-point shot, finishing 0 for 10 from behind the line.
Yet WVU cruised to an 82-54 victory in front of 3,614 fans inside the Coliseum, the Mountaineers seventh consecutive victory against the Panthers.
“I think all of that just shows how tough and resilient we are,” Quinerly said.
WVU (3-0) was indeed resilient, blasting past Pitt (2-1) even while being held to just 39.7% (27 of 68) shooting.
“The end result was, obviously, pretty good,” WVU head coach Mark Kellogg said. “I thought we battled defensively. We started slow. I don’t know if we found any great rhythm for most of the night. There were too many fouls on both teams. That took a lot of momentum away from both teams.”
While the final stats didn’t look great for the Mountaineers, Pitt was much worse.
The Panthers committed 30 turnovers, many of them coming on bad passes against the Mountaineers’ full-court press that ended up in WVU’s hands or in the stands.
The Panthers also lost second-leading scorer Amiya Jenkins to a knee injury in the opening minutes of the game. Leading scorer Khadija Faye fouled out of the game with 8:16 remaining.
Pitt was held to just 32.8% (19 of 58) from the floor and made only 5 of 22 from 3-point range.
“We really just had to slow our minds down,” said WVU point guard Jordan Harrison, who finished with 14 points and four assists. “Once we slowed down, we kind of got back to playing like we normally do. We were taking a lot on uncharacteristic quick shots.”
For now, this was the final game of the series between the two women’s teams, not that Kellogg didn’t make an attempt to keep the rivalry going.
“We asked to continue it,” Kellogg said. “We would continue it, but I don’t think they wanted to continue (playing.)”
As drawn out as the game became, there were glimpses of greatness for the Mountaineers, who will host Texas A&M on Friday.
They came early in the second half, beginning with Quinerly getting herself into the lane off a drive. Rather than keep going, where two Pitt defenders were waiting under the rim, Quinerly simply pulled up and nailed a short jumper.
Seconds later, Quinerly found herself in between two Pitt players, so she simply leaned back and canned another nine-footer.
She then intercepted Pitt’s attempt to inbounds the ball, passed it to Harrison for another bucket.
It had to be one of the quickest 6-0 runs so far this season, one that forced Pitt to call a timeout while facing a 41-25 deficit.
The bad thing about glimpses, they only last for so long.
“It happens in these types of games. They call it the Backyard Brawl for a reason,” Quinerly said. “We definitely didn’t see a lot of shots go in like we usually do. We had to grind it out.”
Quinerly did finish with a game-high 17 points, but it came on 23 shots.
Kellogg said the plan is to keep Quinerly playing aggressive, even while she’s connecting on just 31% of her shots on the season.
“It has been a battle,” Quinerly said. “I haven’t been a great 3-point shooter in all my years here. I’ve definitely been working on that. Not seeing the ball going in can be a little frustrating. As long as I can get to the hoop and get to the foul line and see the ball go in there, maybe I’ll start seeing those threes go in eventually.”
Sydney Shaw added 11 points for WVU, all of them coming in the second half. Faye did get a double-double for Pitt with 14 points and 12 rebounds before fouling out.
Former Fairmont Senior star Marley Washenitz was held scoreless in 14 minutes of action for the Panthers.
