Eden Gainer, Wheeling Central Girls Rout Tucker County in State Tournament
Rematch with St. Joe up next for Knights
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CHARLESTON -- The stats don't lie: 50 percent from the field (20 of 40); 55.6 percent from 3-point land (10 of 18) and 90.5 percent from the free-throw line (19 of 21).
Wheeling Central girls' basketball coach Penn Kurtz said he will take those numbers in any gym. But doing it at the notoriously tough shooting Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center, that makes it even more impressive.
During the final game of Wednesday's W.Va. Class A quarterfinal round, the No. 4 Maroon Knights (16-9) jumped out to a hot start, used their stingy defense to cool the Tucker County offense and rolled to a dominating 69-39 win against the No. 5 Mountain Lions.
The victory sets up a 1 p.m. Friday matchup against top-seeded St. Joseph Central in a rematch of last season's Class A title game, won by Wheeling Central.
"We got off to a great start, shot the ball great throughout the game, and then played excellent defense," Kurtz said. "Any time you hold a team under 40 points, that is a great job defensively. That has been our goal for the last few weeks of the season and we finally did it.
"It was a great team defensive effort and any time you shoot the ball like that, you have a great chance to win."
How impressive was the Wheeling Central defense?
Tucker County (17-7) was held to 30 percent shooting (15 of 50) and 14.3 from beyond the arc (1 of 7).
The Mountain Lions have three players that average double digits, led by 5-foot-10 standout Terra Kuhn (13.6 points per game).
Wheeling Central's Kaylee Reinbeau drew the task of dealing with Kuhn and was phenomenal. Kuhn was limited to six points on 3 of 13 shooting.
"When Kaylee makes up her mind, she can guard anybody in the state," Kurtz said. "She did a great job of not giving her open looks and every time she took an open shot it was contested. What I was very pleased with was she didn't give her any second chances. We have been giving up a lot of offensive rebounds this year and Kaylee did a great job of contesting shots and boxing out."
Added Reinbeau: "We had (former player) Riley Bennington come in and talk to us about our defense. She told us to take it as a game. Dictate what they are going to do and don't let them dictate what they are going to do. I tried my best and followed through with it."
Wheeling Central didn't allow a single Tucker County player into double figures with reserve Aliyah Plum leading the way with seven points.
Offensively, Wheeling Central started the game on fire, never trailing.
Eden Gainer opened the contest with a 3-pointer and she was just getting started from there.
The junior standout was 8 of 15 from the field, 4 of 6 from 3, and a perfect 8-for-8 from the free-throw line to finish with a game-high 28 points.
"It was because my teammates were able to help out on defense," Gainer said. "Kaylee shut down Terra, and that allowed me to be able to run with the ball, and in transition they got me the ball. I think we just played together and without them I wouldn't have been able to do that."
Despite the big lead, Wheeling Central had been in this position before against Tucker. The regular season matchup saw the Maroon Knights capture multiple double-digit leads, only to have the Mountain Lions claw back each time.
A point was made to not let that happen again.
"We talked about it at halftime," Kurtz said. "We seem to always have one bad quarter. We wanted to maintain our focus and play for 32 minutes. They came out in that third quarter and really put the pedal down and we were coasting. I was really happy with how they responded to that because sometimes we don't handle the lead really well."
Reinbeau was just short of a double-double with 18 points and nine rebounds. Marissa Horan, in her first dose of extended minutes in the state tournament, drained three 3-pointers on her way to 13 points.
With that game out of the way, now comes the biggest challenge Wheeling Central will face all season in St. Joe Central. The Irish, who bring back most of their team from the title game loss last season, opened the tournament in impressive fashion, thumping Midland Trail, 74-29.
"St. Joe, they are a tough matchup," Kurtz said. "We are a different team than we were last year. We are going to have to do some things better. We are going to have to play great defense and take care of the basketball. If we can do those things, we can be in the game.
"They have five good players at every position and we are going to have to play as a team. I would rather have the opportunity to play them, than not. I am going to enjoy (the Tucker County win) for the next 15 minutes, then probably be sleepless for the next two nights trying to figure out what we are going to do."
Boys
Ohio Division II
District Semifinals
John Glenn 70
St. Clairsville 52
CAMBRIDGE -- Dylan Busby, Brett Vike and Craig Bober all scored 14 points, but St. Clairsvilleís season ended with a loss to John Glenn.
Steubenville 66
Harrison Central 47
CONNORVILLE -- Calvin Bickerstaff and Josh Zimmerman netted 12 points to lead Steubenville to a victory over Harrison Central.
James Roundtree added 10 for Big Red.
Kobe Mitchell the Huskies with a game-high 32 points.