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Ravenswood Devils dance past Crusaderettes, 46-43

Ravenswood’s Claudia Cubides drives past Parkersburg Catholic’s Madeline Huffman during a high school basketball game Tuesday in Parkersburg. Photo by Steve Hemmelgarn.

PARKERSBURG — Ravenswood belied the old axiom, third time’s the charm, Tuesday night as the visiting Red Devilettes clipped Parkersburg Catholic 46-43 in the semifinals of the Class A Region IV, Section 1 girls basketball tournament, keyed mightily by 6-0 junior center Ali Westenhaver’s inside presence with 20 points and 14 rebounds.

Ravenswood, now 12-12 with a quarter of those victories over the Crusaderettes, advances to Friday’s 7 p.m. sectional championship contest at Williamstown after notching its seventh win in a row, while Catholic concluded its season at 12-11.

PCHS, though, started the night with a hot hand as Alexis Saunders drilled three treys in the initial 5:39 and then teammate Olivia Ullman canned a 3-ball from the right corner with 7.7 seconds left to lift Catholic into a 16-9 advantage after one period of play.

The second stanza saw the hosts go up by as much as 11 twice at 24-13 and 27-16 on an Emma Gardner trey before Ravenswood began to make inroads, chopping its deficit all way down to 28-25 at the half with Westenhaver scoring inside off an offensive rebound with just 4.4 seconds left.

That capped a 10-point second quarter for Westenhaver, but there was still more to come.

Ravenswood’s momentum continued over into the second half. A 6-0 spurt to begin play again on a basket by Westenhaver followed by two from Claudia Cubides and the visitors went up 31-28. A Saunders driving layup knotted the count at 31-all before the teams traded leads three times in the last 1:28 of the third period on a Gardner trey (36-35 PCHS), Westenhaver hoop (37-36 Ravenswood) and finally another Gardner field goal at 6.8 seconds for a 38-37 Catholic edge going to the fourth quarter.

But Ravenswood took the lead for good at 41-40 on a pair of Westenhaver hoops, the second on a feed inside to her at the 2:31 mark of the final period. And the visitors tacked on a Hunter Gorrell field goal on a break and three Haylie Reynolds foul shots for a commanding 46-40 lead with just 25.2 seconds to play.

Saunders, who hit a trey at 2.4 seconds, finished with 23 points, while Gardner netted 10 points and Ullman collected eight.

“Ali (Westenhaver) was big for us tonight; she did a great job,” said Ravenswood head coach Cara Williams. “We knew that they would have trouble with her size. She did a really good job tonight of not reaching and picking up fouls, so was able keep herself on the floor, as we needed every one of her points tonight.”

Plus, Williams “challenged” her team at halftime “to dig in defensively. Good things happen when you play defense. I thought the last half of the first half and then the second half our girls really did a good job defensively in kind of disrupting what they wanted to do, and then we scored just enough to get out of here with a win tonight.”

Catholic head coach Marty Vierheller gave Ravenswood “a ton of credit. In our three games against them, we just could not overcome a common denominator which was the glass. Ali (Westenhaver) had a fantastic game tonight. The biggest factor was that they made life very easy on themselves because they got to the glass and were able to convert so many times, who so it seemed like. But they did it and we didn’t, and they’re moving on.”

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