Parkersburg South advances to state

By Steve Hemmelgarn, Parkersburg News & Sentinel

 

PARKERSBURG — Parkersburg South’s defense was definitely dandy Tuesday night in the No. 2-ranked Patriots’ 72-58 triumph over No. 10 Ripley for the Class AAA Region VI championship at PHS Memorial Fieldhouse. The Patriots wrapped up their fifth straight trip to the state high school girls basketball tournament next week in Charleston.

But South couldn’t put away the resilient Vikings (18-6) until the fourth quarter, despite having a 10-point advantage in the second stanza and a 14-point lead at 40-26 midway through the third period.

But back-to-back treys by Amber Shreeves and Kayla Ayers early in the final period enabled the Patriots to turn a shaky seven-point lead into a 13-point gap at 55-42 with 6:23 to play, and Ripley never got any closer than 12 after that

Asia Greenleaf paced the South (23-1) point-production with 19, followed by Ayers with 17, Danielle Floyd with 15, Ali Morris with 11 and Shreeves with seven, while for Ripley, Lexy Kessel netted 15 points, Tanya Melhorn and Tori Eagle tallied 11 each, and Alannah Sheets added 10.

‘‘Our defense generally is our key,’’ said South head coach Scott Stephens, who notched 100th career win with the Patriots as his team was relentless on defense, hitting the floor too many times to count for force turnovers or for loose balls or steals.

‘‘Our kids really got after it on defense. But give Ripley a lot of credit. They did a nice job on us taking away our transition game, which wasn’t very effective tonight.’’

South led 8-3 early, but Sheets and Kessel sparked a Ripley rally that culminated in a tying (13-13) trey by Eagle with 45.6 seconds left in the first quarter, only to see Greenleaf get a rebound bucket, then take a pass from Ayers on the baseline for a hoop in the last 18 seconds for a four-point Patriot lead (17-13) after the first eight minutes.

Six more South points, four by Greenleaf, to start the second period made it 23-13, but Ripley chopped the margin to seven, 30-23, by halftime.

But the third quarter saw South tally 10 of the initial 13 points, the last four on consecutive steals by Floyd for layups, to jump up by 40-26 at the 3:51 mark. But Kessel and Sheets again brought the Vikes back to with seven, 47-40, by the close of the period after getting within six, 44-38, at 1:13.

‘‘We were ready to play with a lot of intensity tonight,’’ said South junior point guard Danielle Floyd. ‘‘And Ali (Morris) did a real good job containing (Ripley’s point guard Tonya) Melhorn.’’

Ripley head coach Steve Hunt praised South as ‘‘a good defensive team. We got rattled just a little bit, but were still in it, only down seven going into the fourth, but they made the big shots when it counted the most. But we’re young (three sophomore starters) and the youngness showed tonight. But it was a great year. We’re disappointed we didn’t win tonight, but proud of the year we had.’’
 

Girl's AAA State Tournament Field Set - Almost!