Wheeling Central Girls Defeat Bishop Donahue
Knights will face Dragons for title 1 p.m. Saturday
WHEELING — It took only one half of basketball Wednesday night for Wheeling Central’s girls’ basketball team to make its first statement in the West Virginia Class A postseason.
That statement came at the expense of rival Bishop Donahue, and while it means advancing to the sectional championship game for Coach Penn Kurtz’ Maroon Knights, it was also a goodbye to a very proud program for the school from McMechen.
Junior Taylor Duplaga scored 19 of her game-high 23 points in the first half while freshman Kaylee Reinbeau backed her with 11 points and seven rebounds during the first two quarters as Central blew out to a big lead and was never threatened in rolling to a convincing 71-44 triumph over the Bishops at their East Wheeling gym.
With the win Kurtz’s crew advances to Saturday afternoon’s 1 p.m. Region One, Section One championship game against Cameron. Both of Saturday’s combatants are guaranteed a berth in next week’s regional tournament.
“This is the start of the journey and we are now just two games away from where we want to be (Charleston),” a happy Kurtz said afterwards. “This was a nice first step, now we will go out and see what happens on Saturday.”
Rebounding, second-chance shots and converting turnovers into points were all key factors to the Maroon Knights’ (22-1) ability to jump on Bishop Donahue early. With Duplaga scoring nine and Reinbeau seven, Wheeling Central opened up a 21-12 lead after the first eight minutes.
But a deeper look inside the numbers showed the Knights grabbing a whopping 17-2 edge off the glass and putting up 24 shots in the quarter. Bishop Donahue turned the ball over eight times in the quarter and needed nearly three minutes to get its first field-goal attempt.
Very little improved for Coach Shawn Martin’s club in the second eight minutes, even with the Central starters all sitting out more than three minutes of play. Duplaga again had the hot hand, scoring 10 points, including a long 3-pointer to end the half and send the hosts to the locker room with a 46-4 bulge.
In the first half alone Wheeling Central was 20 of 46 from the field, which was more field goals and attempts than the Bishops had in the entire game, while out-rebounding their guests by a 31-10 margin.
Kurtz turned things over to his bench for the final 10 minutes, however, with a lineup that was without a pair of key contributors, the Bishops just did not have enough in the tank to make up any ground as the Knights led 61-34 after three.
“I thought we may have been a little rusty with the week off,” Kurtz said. “But this time of year that is going to happen and you have to be prepared for it. It’s hard to send them out to just keep practicing when they are ready to play games.
“But when we play hard and as aggressive as we did (Wednesday) we are a very good team and are going to be very hard to beat. Our starters are all good rebounders and the girls turned up the heat on defense and got some easy baskets.”
Junior Riley Bennington also hit double-figures for the Maroon Knights with 10 points, while also pulling down a game-high eight rebounds. Senior Jewell Purpura paced the Bishops with 14 points while younger sister Josie finished with 11.
Central finished with a 49-20 rebounding edge and turned the ball over 19 times, seven less than the Bishops.
“I don’t think you necessarily have to be perfect to beat Central, but you do have to go out and rebound,” Martin said. “They just kept getting rebounds and putting up shots early. You have to go after the glass and they did a good job of that.
“No way you are going to beat them if you let them hit the glass like that. They are a very good basketball team, but anytime you let any team get off five and six shots a trip you are probably going to lose.
“They have some good shooters and I believe they will do well in Charleston. I think we were also probably a little out of gas late. We were missing some girls that usually provide us big minutes and they had the ability to keep subbing.”
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