SOUTH CHARLESTON — George Washington’s girls overcame early nervousness on Saturday to build a large halftime lead, then held on for a 59-54 win over Parkersburg to claim the Mountain State Athletic Conference girls basketball championship.

Rayana Breckenridge scored a game-high 22 points for the Patriots (20-1) who struggled with turnovers early in the first quarter, then settled in to build a 38-21 lead over Parkersburg(15-6).

Coach Chris Murray’s team rallied for a 73-66 win over GW on Feb. 13 and nearly pulled off a fourth-quarter comeback at the South Charleston Community Center on Saturday, pulling within 55-50 with 1:07 to play.

The Patriots forced a jump ball with 30 seconds to stop Parkersburg from cutting the lead to possession. With the arrow in GW’s favor, coach Jamie LaMaster’s team was able to score on its final two possessions, including two free throws by Breckenridge, to hang on for the championship.

That Parkersburg rallied again on his team, LaMaster said, was a reflection that his Patriots had only one senior on their team.

“We had to make sure that we understood the situation with team fouls, possession arrow, and what we were trying to do; I felt like we had a fairly quick trigger late in the game, but that’s how we play,” LaMaster said.

Falling behind and rallying is how Parkersburg has played this season, Murray said.

“Us being down is never a big deal,” said Murray, whose team was led by Frances Guice’s 19 points. “We’ll figure it out. I thought we played well, it was fine, they made more shots than us. It was OK.”

Guice and Kennedy Porter, who scored 18 points and led Parkersburg with 14 rebounds, helped Parkersburg rally in the fourth period after trailing 48-35 through three quarters.

Murray’s team got stops on defense, forcing five GW turnovers over the final eight minutes and getting to the free-throw line where they shot 6 of 6 from the line in the last stanza.

By that time, however, the Patriots’ Jeriyah Pryor, who had been quiet offensively in the first half with six points, answered with seven points in the fourth quarter and swiped two of her five steals in the game to thwart Parkersburg.

Breckenridge, who made all four of her 3-point attempts in the first half, missed the only shot behind the arc that she took in the second half. She made a pair of free-throws in the fourth quarter for GW.

However, Breckenridge scored 20 points in the first half to help the Patriots to the halftime advantage. Her 3-pointer at 4:52 of the first quarter gave her team a 5-4 lead, their first in the contest, and they never trailed again.

Play was stopped with 3:30 to go in the game after Kennedy got an offensive rebound and a put back basket that put her over 1,000 points for her high school career.

“She’s been the consummate teammate, player, leader, everything,” Murray said.

LaMaster said he is constantly learning from his young team and Saturday’s conference finale was no different.

Wanting to find out how GW responded to an opponent who dealt the team their only defeat this season and getting a second shot at beating Parkersburg.

“That is a great, great win for us going into the postseason, one from a confidence standpoint,” LaMaster said. “Today is a great confidence builder for us.”