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Hawks Rout JM in Top-10 Showdown

Monarchs misfire on 45 of 53 shots

Photo by Kyle Lutz John Marshall’s Landyn Helms drives to the basket during Wednesday’s game against University.

MOUNDSVILLE — It was billed as a Top-10 West Virginia Class AAA girls’ basketball matchup between No. 8 University and No. 7 John Marshall. But it turned into a rout in a hurry Wednesday night at the John Marshall Field House.

Abbie Coen led three double-figure scorers with 14 points as the Hawks (9-4) limited the Monarchs (9-4) to 15-percent (8 of 53) shooting in a 58-26 victory.

JM shot out of the gates quickly with a pair of 3-pointers from Abby Blake and another from Shay Straughn to hold a 9-6 lead. However, the Hawks went on to outscore the Monarchs, 49-17, the rest of the way.

University opened in a 2-3 zone defense, but went man-to-man after the quick barrage.

And the insertion of Lauren Dean, who finished with six rebounds, five points and four steals, seemed to up University’s intensity, particularly on the defensive end.

”Dean’s a freshman and she’s long, quick and aggressive,” Hawks coach David Price said. ”I felt like that is what we needed to do on their guards, and it seemed to help us a lot.

”We went to man and I thought we locked it down there. Defensively we were pretty happy with our effort as a team.”

The switch in defenses caught Monarchs coach Brock Melko by surprise. Well, the results did, anyway.

”I think we’re a better team against man-to-man and I prefer for teams to play us that way,” he said. ”For some reason we didn’t react to it very well.

”We’re seasoned enough at this point that we should be able to handle that. The biggest thing was, once we got down six or seven points — and it was early in the game — we looked like it was over. We looked defeated.”

With Abby and twin sister Anna Blake each picking up their second fouls in the first quarter, it forced Melko to go to his bench probably earlier than he wanted.

Once the Hawks got the lead on an Ashten Boggs 3-pointer to make it 12-9, they never relented. It was 16-9 after the first quarter and 28-12 by halftime as the Monarchs failed to reach double-figures in any quarter.

As John Marshall was struggling to find its shooting touch, University made sure it didn’t allow second and third opportunities around the basket. Led by 12 rebounds each from Boggs (10 points) and Mallary Napolillo (eight points), the Hawks won the battle of the boards, 55-28.

”I really do believe (rebounding) is something that is a work in progress with our team,” Price said. ”I think we have good enough players to do that and we’re starting to make things like that a priority.

”It pays big dividends in the end. The little things add up to something big and as we work toward the back-half of our season, I definitely want to see those little things come together to benefit us.”

The rebounding margin was not something Melko was pleased with.

”We didn’t crash the boards which is really atypical of us,” he said. ”When we’ve been winning these games it’s because of our effort. (This time) we lost because of our effort.

”In a long season you have those nights. We can handle having a bad offensive showing like that. You can’t control missing shots and missing free throws.

”But if we don’t play with our typical energy, which we didn’t, then we don’t give ourselves a chance.”

Zoey Murphy added 10 points, five rebounds and three assists for the Hawks. Abby Blake and Shay Straughn paced the Monarchs with eight points apiece while Catherine Hunnell had seven points and a team high-tying five boards.

”It’s really hard to coach effort and I really haven’t had to all this year, but obviously after a showing like that it’s where you have to start and end the conversation,” Melko said. ”I said before the game that there was a club of teams that are kind of respected around the area and around the state, and we’re knocking on the door to get in that respect club.

”I thought this was our chance to break through. I thought we were prepared to knock them off and earn our respect, and obviously we didn’t do it.

”The good news for us, is we’re going to have chances lined up down the stretch to do that.”

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