photo by: Kim North

Wheeling Park’s K’Lyn Neider (2) defends against Spring Mills’ Remiyah Jones during the second half of Friday night’s W.Va. Class AAAA Region I semifinal inside the ‘Palace on the Hill.’ Neider charted 10 steals as the Patriots routed the Cardinals, 63-25.

WHEELING – Despite its struggles this season, the Wheeling Park girls basketball team is just one victory away from punching its ticket to the W.Va. Class AAAA state tournament. Head coach Ryan Young knew his team would take its lumps after losing nearly 5,000 career points (4,986) to graduation, but he was proud of their effort Friday night.

With a workmanlike, 63-25, rout of visiting Spring Mills in a Region I semifinal inside the ‘Palace on the Hill,’ the seventh-seeded Patriots (4-18) advanced to Wednesday’s Region championship at No. 2 Martinsburg. The No. 10 Cardinals (1-19) ended a dismal season, losing for the 12th time in a row. They have won since Jan. 9.

Friday night’s matchup was a re-match of a Class AAA state semifinal two years ago in which Wheeling Park prevailed before losing to Morgantown in the state final.

“I think we had a slow start and that’s what we just talked about,” Young said. “We can’t start like that against Martinsburg, so our focus now has to be coming to practice and starting strong and carrying that over to the game.

“If we start like that on Wednesday, we’ll be in big trouble.”

Promising freshman Brielle Wells got the Patriots off to a good start with eight eight points in the first quarter as Wheeling Park recovered from a 3-0 deficit to lead 13-8. Wells netted six points in the second quarter and Italy Schroeder buried two of her final trifectas as the margin ballooned to 30-10 at the half.

Spring Mills was only able to score two points in the quarter, both on free throws. It was charged with 22 first-half turnovers and finished with 34.

“With everything we lost (to graduation), we’re still just one win away from going down state,” Young noted. “I applaud my team’s effort, especially down the stretch when they hadn’t won a lot of games. That’s hard on a high school kid to stay focused and we’ve done a great job of that.”

Karringtyn Miller tallied nine of her 10 points in the third quarter and Schroeder knocked down her final two triples as the lead increased to 55-15 after three panels.

Schroeder’s 15 points led the Patriots. Wells added 14 and Miller had 10. Miller also charted six rebounds, five assists and three steals, while Wells finished with four thefts. Junior K’Lyn Neider recorded a whopping 10 steals as Wheeling Park totalled 22.

“We had good, balanced scoring tonight,” Young added. “We got contributions from everybody. K’Lyn was all over the court defensively.”

Layla Pettit had half-a-dozen boards.

Wheeling Park, which had lost nine of its ;last 10 outings, committed 10 turnovers.

Spring Mills sophomore Remiyah Jones led all scorers with 16.

GAME NOTES

– The Cardinals only dressed six girls. Their roster had eight names scratched out, with two listed as injured.

– The fourth quarter was cut down to seven minutes by mutual agreement of the two head coaches.