Chapmanville's Brooke Christian (23) looks to dribble past a Robert C. Byrd defender on her way to the basket during second quarter of the Lady Tigers 55-44 loss on Jan. 7 at Logan's Willie Akers Arena (Photo by Bill Lusk/WVOW Sports).
Bill Lusk | WVOW Sports
CHAPMANVILLE Chapmanville went scoreless for a 10-minute stretch in the second half as Class AAA No. 1 Wayne remained unbeaten with a 44-26 victory over the Class AA eighth-ranked Lady Tigers Wednesday night at the Danny Godby Gymnasium.
Chapmanville did not score in the third quarter and went 10:31 without a point, finally breaking through on Jaiden Mahon short jumper with 6:34 remaining in the fourth quarter breaking a 13-0 Wayne run.
Mahon hit a 3 with 1:05 to play before halftime to bring Chapmanville within seven points, 23-16, however, the Lady Tigers would miss their next 10 shots in that time span and turned the ball over 10 times in the third quarter that saw them shot 0 of 7 from the field.
“That was probably the worse eight minutes of basketball we had all year,” Chapmanville coach Kristina Gore said. “It is hard to explain sometimes, I felt like we were getting lazy with our passes, wasn’t putting any mustard on it and wasn’t moving without the ball very well.”
When the third quarter ended, Wayne had an 18-point lead and led by 20 points before Chapmanville finally cracked the scoring column in the fourth quarter.
“Unfortunately, our confidence has been reactive lately, if we are making shots we are up, if we are not making shots, we start getting down on ourselves and it affects us on both ends,” Gore said.
Wayne coach Wade Williamson, whose Lady Pioneers held Chapmanville to a season low 26 points, a season-low 16 first half points as well as a season low nine field goals, said he and his coaching staff employed several defenses in the first half before making few tweaks at halftime.
“We changed defense a lot in the first half, trying to settle on something that was working pretty good and make a few tweaks to it,” Williamson said. “We did a good job of defending their screens up top and once we did that, we kind of made them rush a little bit.”
Wayne’s length on defense forced 26 deflections resulting in 15 steals, eight blocked shots and 24 Chapmanville turnovers.
“Our length has been effective for the most part on everybody, but it was as nearly as effective against them at our place,” Williamson said. “We do a good job of getting hands on passes, tipping balls and things of that nature.”
Brooke Adkins led Wayne with 18 points, including seven of the Lady Pioneers 11 points in the third quarter. Adkins was 8 of 13 from field, dished out a team-high five assists, pulled down five rebounds, blocked three shots and had two steals for the Lady Pioneers in the victory.
Addie Adkins added 12 points while Laneigh Brooks finished with seven points and Mikayla Stacy had four points to go along with a team high in rebounds (7) and steals (5).
“Tonight was Brooke’s night, she came out hot right off the bat, made a lot of plays and she missed a few shots that she normally makes,” Williamson said. “We have the capability to spread it around when we are moving it around and playing our game.”
The much-anticipated rematch from the two schools first encounter, a 64-61 Wayne victory on Dec. 20, was nothing like the first meeting.
“We played them at their place, lost by three, and shots were falling for us,” Gore said. “We remained confident and fought throughout the game, but I think if we were able to come out in the third quarter, hit a few shots then the game would have looked a little bit differently. We got to dig deep and figure out how to fight through those shooting woes when we have them.”
Wayne was 15 of 49 shooting from the field, made 4 of its 17 3-point attempts and was 10 of 12 from the free throw line.
Chapmanville shot 9 of 30 from the field, was 5 of 18 behind the 3-point line and made just 3 of 10 free throw attempts.
“I felt like we were getting good opportunities, but we just weren’t able to find the bottom of the net,” Gore said.
Wayne improves to 18-0 on year and is now 8-0 in the Cardinal Conference. The Lady Pioneers will be back in action Saturday afternoon at Ripley. The Lady Vikings, who are ranked third in AAA, were defeated by the Lady Pioneers, 60-27, on Jan. 6 at Wayne, but Williamson expects a much tighter game this time around.
“We jumped on them early at our place and we just took advantage of that,” Williamson said. “They will definitely be ready for us; I think it will be a good test for us Saturday afternoon.”
As the regular season draws closer to completion and with an undefeated regular season within reach, Williamson said the only conversation between him and his team is to take it one day at a time, but he said he is sure the girls are aware of the possibility of finishing with unblemished mark heading into sectional tournament play.
“We haven’t said anything about it at all, nobody has even mentioned it, and we are just trying to do the best we can to get better every game if we can,” Williamson said. “I don’t think we are really focused on that, but I am sure the girls are aware of that and want to do that, but we haven’t talked about it.”
Wednesday’s game with Chapmanville was the first of four consecutive road games for Wayne in its final five games of the regular season. The Lady Pioneers are at Ripley on Saturday, travel to Scott on Monday then go to Logan on Wednesday before closing the season at home against Scott on Feb. 13.
“That is one of those things where that is what you want to do at this time of the year and given our situation is to play in tough environments,” Williamson said. “You want to be in adverse situations and see how those things are handled and I don’t think we could ask for anything more at this time of the year."
The Lady Tigers, now 10-7 overall and 5-3 in the Cardinal Conference, will have to put Wednesday’s loss in the rear-view mirror when they host county rival and Class AAA No. 9 Logan Friday night. The Lady Wildcats, who will be looking to avenge an earlier season loss to the Lady Tigers, 52-46, on Jan. 11 at the Willie Akers Arena, have won five of their last seven games following Wednesday’s 41-32 win over AAA No. 5 Nitro.
“We talk a lot about having a short memory and you have to in this game when you are playing two or three nights a week,” Gore said. “You can’t let one loss turn into two or three and let it snowball. We got a big rivalry game coming in here Friday and if you can’t get up for a game with Logan then you can’t get up for anybody.”
With five games left in the regular season, the goal remains the same for Chapmanville, and that is to reach the state tournament for the first time in 11 years.
Chapmanville will play its three games against Class AAA competition starting with ninth-ranked and reigning state champion Logan on Friday before hitting the road for two games to play in tough environments at Scott on Thursday and Winfield the following Saturday.
The Lady Tigers return home to face AA No. 9 Charleston Catholic on Feb. 15 and close the regular season at Class AAAA Greenbrier East on Feb. 18.
“I know these girls, what they are capable of and how much fight is in them,” Gore said. “All of our goals are still out there and there is no reason why we can’t make a deep run in the postseason. I feel like someone in our region is going to win the state tournament in double-A and there is no reason why it can’t be us.”
“We are getting toward the tail end of the regular season and good news is that we don’t have to run into Wayne in the postseason, nobody wants to run into them,” Gore said. “At the end of it, we could lose out the rest of the regular season and still finish in Charleston. We just have to realize that any day could be our day and try to keep getting better so that come postseason we are where we need to be.”
Wayne 44, Chapmanville 26
Wayne (18-0)
Adkins, B. 8-13 1-2 18, Adkins, A. 3-13 4-4 12, Brooks 2-10 2-2 7, Stacy 1-8 2-2 4, Runyon 1-2 0-0 2, Williams 0-1 1-2 1, Anderson 0-1 0-0 0, Brown 0-1 0-0 0. Totals: 15-49 10-12 44.
Chapmanville (10-7)
Evans 3-9 2-6 9, Fleming 2-5 1-2 7, Mahon 2-5 0-0 5, Christian 1-4 0-0 3, Thompson 1-2 0-2 2,
Blair 0-5 0-0 0. Totals: 9-30 3-10 26.
Wayne 17 6 11 10- 44
Chapmanville 10 6 0 10- 26
3-Point Field Goals_Wayne 4-17 (Adkins, B. 1-2, Adkins, A. 2-7, Brooks 1-5, Stacy 0-3), Chapmanville 5-18 (Evans 1-3, Fleming 2-3, Mahon 1-4, Christian 1-4). Fouled Out_None. Rebounds_Wayne 24 (Stacy 8), Chapmanville 22 (Mahon 6). Assists_Wayne 9 (Adkins, B. 4), Chapmanville 8 (Fleming 3). Total Fouls_Wayne 10, Chapmanville 8. Technicals_None.
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