Parkersburg High School pulls off upset
No. 10 Parkersburg girls down Class AAAA No. 4 Cabell Midland
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PARKERSBURG -- Wednesday night's Mountain State Athletic Conference showdown featured a pair of quad-A ranked programs which hadn't played since Dec. 30.
Parkersburg first-year head coach Chris Murray's team took the lead for good at 16-13 with 26.1 ticks left in the opening quarter when Kisten Roberts converted a three-point play from a Riley Hilling assist as the No. 10 Big Reds upset fourth-ranked Cabell Midland, 64-49.
"I talked to the girls and it was funny because tensions were getting there and practices were getting a little bit more chippy," admitted Murray, who got 15 points from Roberts, 14 by Trinity Balog and 10 apiece from Brilynn Florence and London Hood. "I said to them they just need to row the boat a little bit longer. I feel like we are playing really good basketball right now.
"Even against Wheeling Park, I thought we played good. I just felt like we were clicking at the right time and we just needed a game to kind of get out and show what we've been working on and what we want to do."
Balog drained a 3 and also had a three-point play in the first quarter. She scored 10 of her markers in the first half.
Cabell Midland, which dropped to 6-3 and plays Thursday at South Charleston, cut the deficit to 25-24 following a Jayda Allie lay-in with 1:37 left before intermission. However, Balog had a lay-in, Hood hit a short jumper and Roberts, who had team-highs of eight rebounds and five assists, registered a putback just before the buzzer to give PHS a 31-24 cushion at the break.
"They are starting to buy into how we want to play defense, how we need to move, how we need to get physical on the boards, how we need to push the tempo, how we run our sets, and we're starting to get stuff out of those sets that we run," noted Murray, whose squad forced 19 turnovers and had 13 themselves, but only a trio in the second half.
Hayley McCale connected for her second 3 of the game with 1:03 left in the third as PHS still led 41-35.
The Knights, who were led by Jazmyn Wheeler's game-highs of 23 points and 11 boards, made it 43-37 entering the fourth when Wheeler beat the horn for a lay-in.
A Hood steal led to the first points of the fourth when Roberts assisted on a Balog deuce. Florence, who scored all of her counters in the fourth, knocked down a 3 and Payton Harvey followed with a layup on a sideline inbounds play to give the hosts their biggest lead of the tilt at 50-39 with 5:11 remaining. CMHS, which got 10 points from Sophie Aldridge, never got it back to a two-possession game.
"We were down Taylor (Miller) tonight, but we had kids step up and play great minutes," added the coach, who got three steals apiece from McCale and Hood. "I was really proud of the way they adjusted.
"Cabell Midland had some COVID issues and we wanted to challenge their conditioning and get them in a full-court press. They got some great players."
A rarity took place with 40.3 ticks remaining when McCale stepped to free-throw line for a 1-and-1 opportunity. Her attempt wedged between the rim and the glass on the left side of the box.
"No," Murray replied when asked if he'd ever witnessed that before on a foul shot. "I don't even know how you miss it like that, you know. I'm not entirely sure how it happened."
Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com