The Shadow
The historic season for the Alleghany Lady Mountaineers basketball team came to an end on Friday night, following a 57-41 loss to the Central-Wise Lady Warriors in the quarterfinals of the Class 2 state tournament.
After a tightly battled first half in which the Lady Warriors of the Mountain 7 conference only held onto a four point lead, 26-22, at halftime despite 15 Lady Mountaineer turnovers. In the third quarter, the game flipped upside down.
In what was a one point game, 28-27, in the third quarter, a key steal by Emmah McAmis with 5:30 left in the quarter, led to an easy layup for her to give the Lady Warriors a 30-27 lead. The Lady Mounties would not recover from the turnover and followed their next possession turning the basketball over. The turnover led to another McAmis layup that put the Lady Warriors in front 32-27.
The turnover by the Lady Mounties in the third quarter led to the Lady Warriors not only going on an 8-0 scoring run to build a 36-27 lead, but the Lady Warriors finished the game off by outscoring the Lady Mounties 29-14 for the rest of the game.
In the crucial defining third quarter, the Lady Mounties were held to seven points.
Backed by McAmises game-high 24 points, the Lady Warriors were now one win away from the state championship game. McAmis, was the key factor for the Lady Warriors in third quarter. Not only was the steal by McAmis a big play in the quarter, she also scored 10 of her 24 points in the quarter and at one point scored six straight points that built the teams lead up to nine points at 38-29.
In her final basketball game at the high school level, Erin Harden led the way in scoring for the Mountaineers with a team-high 14 points, while knocking down two of six three-point attempts. Harden, also recorded a team-high seven rebounds. Zamera Hayslett, was second in scoring for the team as she record seven points, all of them coming in the first half. Averi Phillips, finished the game with five points and six rebounds in her final high school basketball game. Meanwhile, Macyn Cash, who led the team in scoring on the season with just over 11 points per game, was held to just four points.
It was a tough night shooting for the Lady Mounties. The team shot 33% (16-for-48) overall and made just 23% (5-for-22) of their three-point attempts. The Lady Mountaineers had knocked down four three-pointers in the first half, but only managed to knock down one out of eight attempts in the second half.
The Lady Mounties struggled in their last two games from behind the arc (both losses). In the regional championship game the team made just 13% (3-for-23) of their three-point attempts. The three-point shot was something that was natural to the team all season long, but in the last two playoff games, it was the teams kryptonite.
The Lady Warriors picked up the win despite shooting 22% (4-for-18) from behind the arc. After a dismal first half in which the team only made one of 11 three-point attempts, the Warriors knocked down three of seven attempts in the second half that helped build their lead to double digits.
While the score reads a double digit loss for the Lady Mounties, it was anything but that in the first half.
The Lady Mounties opened the game scoring the first four points to take a 4-0 lead.
The Lady Warriors would come back scoring six straight points to take their first lead of the gam at 6-4. As the first quarter was winding down, Bryce Leitch, knocked down a three-pointer to give the Lady Mounties an 11-9 lead after one quarter of play.
To open the second quarter, the Lady Warriors jumped out of the quarter by going on a 9-3 scoring run to build up their then largest lead at 18-14. At the helm of their second quarter scoring run, was McAmis, who scored seven of the teams first nine points in the quarter. With the Lady Warriors building their lead to eight points, 22-14, Harden, knocked down a three-pointer for the Lady Mounties to cut the lead down to five points. By the end of the first half, the Lady Mounties were only down four points.
The second half was big for the Lady Warriors as the outscored the Lady Mounties 31-19, including that big 8-0 scoring run in the third quarter, following the Lady Mounties opportunity to take a lead. The fourth quarter, the Lady Warriors would just build on their lead they created at the end of the third quarter.
While certainly down on the loss from the state tournament, the Lady Mounties have much to be proud of. The team hosted a region tournament quarterfinals game, while making it all the way to the regional championship. And to top it all off, they also made the state tournament for the first time in program history.
The team will lose three seniors, including two starters, Erin Harden and Averi Phillips. The team will also lose senior Kassie Huffman, who played sporadically throughout the season.
While losing Harden and Phillips won’t be an easy task, the team has majority of the group coming back, including key reserves in Hayslett, Leitch, and Kelsey Nicely. With most of the team returning, head coach, Jeff Wolfe, will have plenty of experience coming back to make another run at not only a regional title, but going further in the state tournament and even possibly a state championship ride in them.
The Lady Mounties finished their season with a record of 17-9.
For the winners, the Lady Warriors hosted Gate City last night in the Class 2 state semifinals. Gate City, had defeated the Class 2C Region Champion, Radford Bobcats 47-39 to advance to Monday nights semifinal game.
Team 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Ttl
AHS 11 11 7 12 41
CWH 9 17 12 19 57
Mountaineers Statistics
Player Pts Reb Ast Stl
Cash 4 1 4 –
Harden 14 7 1 1
Keene – 2 2 –
Phillips 5 6 2 –
Fridley 4 3 – –
Hayslett 7 1 – –
Leitch 3 2 1 1
Nicely 4 4 – –
Warriors Statistics
Player Pts Reb Ast Stl
Allison 8 2 1 1
I. Sturgill 4 1 – –
J. Sturgill 6 7 – 2
Jordan 6 5 4 1
McAmis 24 7 3 4
Brickley 7 3 1 –
Mullins 2 1 1 –
