Ritchie County's Emily Bush, left, and teammate Abbigayl Cox tie-up Parkersburg Catholic's Bryley Starkey following the jump ball during Wednesday night's Class A, Region I, co-final. The Rebels advanced to next week's state tournament following a 65-47 victory. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

PARKERSBURG — A year after reaching the Class AA state basketball tournament the Ritchie County girls of head coach Dave McCullough are making a return trip to Charleston after the third-seeded Rebels ousted second-seeded Parkersburg Catholic, 65-47, here Wednesday evening in a Class A, Region I, co-final.

Junior Elsa Law went for game-highs of 26 points and eight rebounds as the Rebels improved to 17-7 and earned the No. 5 seed, which pits them against No. 4 Tucker County at 9 p.m. on Tuesday in the state quarterfinals.

The seven-member squad for the Crusaderettes of head coach Bob Carr, who didn’t have a program a year ago, fell behind 9-0, trailed 28-8 after one and were unable to recover as the hosts finished the campaign at 14-9.

“I’m feeling a lot of gratitude and thankful for my amazing team and my best friends and my family because that’s what they are to me,” said Rebel senior Emily Bush, who despite foul trouble had nine points and five rebounds.

“I had faith in my team. I knew we could do it and I knew we could push through because we have been training for this and preparing. We did what we needed to do.”

Ritchie County's Elsa Law, pictured here being defended by Parkersburg Catholic's Ellie Kinnison, went for game-highs of 26 points and eight rebounds during the Rebels' 65-47 Class A, Region I, co-final victory Wednesday night. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

Chelsie Jeffrey, who tied teammate Abbigayl Cox for game-high assists honors with four, added 15 points for the victors, including eight in the opening stanza where Law tallied a baker’s dozen.

“When we look like that we’re a very good team because everyone gets involved,” coach McCullough said of the hot start where the Rebels drained 11 of 15 field goal attempts in the first.

“We got out to that big lead and that’s what we needed to do tonight. I felt like if we got in a tight game for the whole game I didn’t know how it was going to be because they got us up at our place (69-61 on Dec. 30) and I was just a little leary of that. This place isn’t an easy place to play in.”

Bush’s lay-in 19 ticks into the affair, which came after having to redo the jump ball following a tie-up, was followed by back-to-back Callie Smith deuces, a Cox foul shot and then a pair of charity stripe tosses from Law.

“She’s the best guard we’ve had in our county since Missy Spangler and she was a player of the year. I mean she’s that kid,” McCullough said of Law, who had a three-point play with 1:47 left in the half to put the Rebels ahead 35-13. “She’s got that effort. She works hard.

“She’s one of the hardest working kids ever and then you got Chelsie who will go in there and she did her thing tonight. Chelsie is a 5-foot-4, 5-5, guard that takes it to the rack and you saw that tonight, and when she does that she’s a really good player.”

Annie Tokodi-Ruth, who led PCHS with 13 points, followed Law’s three-point play with a bucket and then senior Meg Roedersheimer drained a 3 via a Bryley Starkey assist to make it 35-18 at intermission.

Ritchie County, which held a 13-8 edge on turnovers and had a 39-22 rebounding advantage, had its biggest lead at 42-20 with 5:08 to go in the third following a Bush lay-in via a Cox dime.

Parkersburg Catholic, which also got eight points from senior Macy Singer, responded with a 9-2 spurt started by a 3 from Ellie Kinnison, who finished with 11 markers.

The Rebels’ other senior, Jordin Bailey, answered with a basket, but Tokodi-Ruth connected from downtown to cut the deficit to 44-32 after three.

Although Singer’s 6-foot floater hit the box and dropped through to open the fourth, the hosts didn’t get any closer.

“I think we all trust each other very, very well and we’ve grown a lot more as a team since last year,” admitted Bailey, who grabbed six caroms and joined Smith with six points. “I think the start we had today really set the tone for the rest of the night.

“I absolutely love playing with this team. We are so great together. We know how to keep each other’s heads up and there’s no one man ball. We all play like a team, like a family.”

Roedersheimer finished with seven points and joined Starkey with seven rebounds.

“Callie was sick. Two days ago she didn’t even come to practice,” McCullough added. “My assistant thought I was going to kill her in the first half because they were afraid she was going to pass out, but Callie’s a great defender and she did a good job on Kinnison, and that was the person we knew she had to be on.”

Parkersburg Catholic, which had five turnovers against the Rebels’ pressure in the first quarter and missed 8 of 11 shots, was attempting to reach Charleston for the first time since 2022 when the Crusaderettes cut the nets down as double-A state champions.

“We’ll get a good offseason and try to come back next year,” said coach Carr. “It was tough. We never really found our identity. After 22 games you are what you are, but I’m proud of them.

The loss hurts. The girls took it hard as they should, but I think moving forward they understand the legacy, if you will. They’ve established girls basketball again. We had the opportunity. I’m proud of them.

“I’m proud of them and they fought through a lot of adversity. Seven girls come to practice everyday. My thing is we had two goals. Number one was to establish a team and two obviously being a faith-based school we want to do everything to give God glory. That’s sort of my mantra. Give the kids all the credit and God all the glory. Hopefully they understand it and hopefully they learn more about life than basketball and that’s what you want.”

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennet@newsandsentinel.com