Williamstown, WV -

Williamstown           4   4      5   15  =  28

Parkersburg South   7   7    12   19  =  45

Williamstown Scoring:   Seuffer 11, Starcher 7, Cox 5, Fulton 3, Somerville 2.

South Scoring:   Jill Stephens 30, Rachel Wolfe 5, Allison Crislip 3, Bethany Harbour 2, Michelle Molinari 2, Kim Stephens 2, Ashley Curry 1.

Patriots capture first Fenton championship

By JIM BUTTA, Parkersburg News & Sentinel

WILLIAMSTOWN - Yellowjacket head coach Fred Sauro knew the only way to defeat No. 3 (Class AAA) power Parkersburg South and the Patriots' Player of the Year candidate Jill Stephens was to limit the number of times the southsiders had a chance to put points on the scoreboard.

"She (Stephens) is nearly impossible to stop when they have the ball so we decided to try and limit the number of times they had possession of the ball," said Sauro, who saw his team drop to 1-2 on the season with the loss.

It was a ploy that had worked to perfection at the end of last season when Williamstown defeated the Patriots at the Rod Oldham Activity Center en route to earning a trip to the state tournament at the Charleston Civic Center.

"Last year we weren't ready for it (Williamstown's delay tactics) and it frustrated our girls," said South head coach Scott Stephens. "Tonight, the girls did a great job of working hard to get the ball and this time they did something with it once we did."

And, what the southsiders did was make sure the ball got into the hands of their No. 1 player-Jill Stephens, who didn't disappoint them by scoring a game-high 30 points and pulling down 13 rebounds.

"I thought we did a good job of executing what we wanted to do, but we have no control over how good she (Jill Stephens) is," added Sauro.

Williamstown ran off the first 73 seconds of the game, but came up short on two opportunities allowing the Patriots to take the early 2-0 lead when Jill Stephens found a wide open Michelle Molinari under the Yellowjacket bucket at the 5:59 mark.

The 'Jackets were able to answer that bucket with one of their own 35 seconds later when junior Ann Seufer shook loose from the Patriot defense for two of her team-high 11 points.

But, those would be the last points the maroon and gold would put on the scoreboard for the next five minutes while buckets by Stephens and Rachel Wolfe and a free throw by Stephens upped the visitors' lead to five, 7-2, with 1:04 left in the quarter.

A late basket by senior Alisha Starcher cut the deficit to three, 7-4, with 13 seconds left, but would be the final points of the period.

Williamstown would pull to within one twice in the second quarter, but South went on a 5-0 spurt to close out the frame to head to the locker rooms at the intermission with a 14-8 lead.

A lead that would grow to double-digits in the third quarter as Stephens would tally all 12 of the Patriots' points to give the southsiders a 13-point, 26-13, lead with eight minutes left to play.

In the final quarter both teams opened up their offensive attacks, but it was too little too late for the hosts as South out-pointed them by a 19-15 margin to win the contest going away.