West Greene holds off Lady Rockets, 39-36
West Greene's Paige Moninger (21) stretches to pass around the Jefferson-Morgan defense during Friday's game at Jefferson.
Jefferson-Morgan's Ashley Faddis (13) uses an arm to keep West Greene's Rebecca Phillips (15) away as she dribbles the ball down the court.
Jefferson-Morgan's Jessica Taylor (31) jumps high to take a shot over West Greene's Madison Raber (20) during Friday's Section 3-A game.
JEFFERSON — West Greene was able to hold off a late Jefferson-Morgan comeback attempt and kept its composure in its 39-36 road victory in the Section 3-A girls basketball opener Friday night.
“We are happy with the play of our team early in the season and we are really happy to be 1-0 in the section right now,” Lady Pioneers coach Jordan Watson said. “In years past, we found ways to lose close games on the road. Tonight, we pulled it off and hit our foul shots down the stretch.”
The Lady Pioneers (2-1, 1-0) led for the majority of the game, but with less than three minutes left, the Lady Rockets (2-2, 0-1) took their first lead when Mariah Hildebrand knocked down a mid-range jumper to make it 34-33.
On West Greene’s next possession, Alyssa Raber was able to get inside and put up a shot that gave the visitors back the lead. Despite a late bucket by J-M, West Greene made four of its six free throws in the final minute to secure the win.
“We play a lot of sophomores and they contribute,” Watson said. “When they took the lead in the fourth, we just kept our composure and hit some key shots in the final couple of minutes. Anytime you get a win on the road, you take it.”
The first half of the game consisted of gritty defensive play and a total of 24 personal fouls, as both offenses were out of sync.
The Lady Pioneers took a 13-7 lead at the end of the opening eight minutes and pushed it to 24-14 going into halftime.
Only eight points were scored in the third quarter, as the Lady Rockets held a 6-2 scoring edge and only trailed 26-20 through three quarters.
West Greene started the fourth quarter with a 5-1 spree, but J-M battled back, despite only having a limited bench due to illness and injuries, and went on a 12-2 run that included two treys by Hildebrand.
“It’s a challenging thing when you don’t have a lot of players on your bench,” Lady Rockets coach Ellen Hildebrand said. “We were down in numbers tonight and we just couldn’t do the things that we wanted to do. It was especially hard when some of our kids got into foul trouble in the second half. The game kind of dictated to us, but I’m really proud of the fight of our kids.”
Raber scored seven of her team-high 14 points in the final quarter, while Hildebrand collected 10 of her game-high 16 points in the last eight minutes of play.
“We like to play physical and our bigs did a solid job for us tonight,” Watson said. “The Raber twins and Macy McMillan do a real good job of sealing and getting in position for put-backs and boxing out on every possession.”
Other top scorers for the Lady Pioneers were McMillan (eight points) and Rebecca Phillips (six), while the Lady Rockets were helped out by Katie Shaffer (seven) and Christina Schamp (six).
“We were more deliberate on offense in the fourth quarter,” Hildebrand said. “We were not doing that in the first half and that really hurt our offense. We ran our sets and got a better shot selection.”
Both teams are back in action Monday, as J-M travels to Mapletown for a section match-up and West Greene ventures out to Cameron (W.Va.) for a cross-state tip.
Section 3-A
West Greene 13 11 2 13– 39
Jefferson-Morgan 7 7 6 16– 36
West Greene: Alyssa Raber 14, Macy McMillan 8. Jefferson-Morgan: Mariah Hildebrand 16, Katie Shaffer 7. Records: West Greene (2-1, 1-0), Jefferson-Morgan (2-2, 0-1).