Feb 8, 2025
Parkersburg’s Audriana Medina (2) applies full-court pressure on Morgantown’s Tatum DeVries during Friday’s game inside Memorial Stadium. (Photo by Kerry Patrick)
PARKERSBURG – Pundits say good defense beats good offense.
How true these individuals were as Morgantown’s length on defense offset the dangerous outside shooting of the Parkersburg girls basketball team and defeated the Big Reds 62-51.
The Big Reds entered Friday night’s matchup inside Memorial Fieldhouse averaging eight-plus 3-pointers per game. Yet, PHS went 0-for-the first half and finished 3-for-15 (20%) for the game from beyond the arc. Point guard Lauren Flanagan was the only Big Red to experience success and accounted for all three Big Red 3-pointers.
Flanagan and teammate Frances Guice shared team-high scoring honors with 16 points apiece as the fourth-ranked Big Reds dropped to 13-5.
“Morgantown creates some problems because of their length and we have smaller girls,” PHS coach Chris Murray said. “So we have to work a little bit better on getting things open for them.
Parkersburg’s Kennedy Porter, left, works the post against Morgantown’s Lucie Hatcher during Friday’s game inside Memorial Fieldhouse. (Photo by Kerry Patrick)
“Morgantown guards tremendously. They are going to pressure you up and down the floor. We were 0-for-8 from three in the first half – we normally don’t shoot like that.”
Top-ranked Morgantown improved to 13-2 behind 20 points from Kayli Kellogg, another 19 points from Sadaya Jones and Tatum DeVries’ 13 points. The Mohigans, who forced 15 turnovers, swept the home-and-home season series with PHS.
“We probably have seven to eight kids that play phenomenal man defense – they are phenomenal athletes,” Morgantown coach John Fowkes said. “They sat back a little bit on defense last year and I kind of changed that up. We are getting after it a lot with ball pressure, and you saw how well that worked tonight.
“We frustrate a lot of teams with our length and our athleticism. We have some kids who have long arms and bug 3-point shooters.”
Morgantown never trailed for the entire game. Leading 11-10, the Mohigans created some breathing room with a 10-0 run capped by back-to-back threes. Kellogg’s 3-pointer ended the first quarter with MHS leading 18-10 and DeVries opened the second period with a 3-pointer of her own.
Parkersburg’s Frances Guice (3) operates the offense during Friday’s game against Morgantown inside Memorial Fieldhouse. (Photo by Kerry Patrick)
With senior guard Audriana Medina sitting on the bench for the majority of the second quarter after picking up a second foul, the Big Reds still managed to close to within 29-25 behind the determination of Guice and Kennedy Porter on the interior. The two Big Reds combined for 19 points in the first half and each ended the night with 13 rebounds.
MHS quickly turned the tide in the final 35 seconds of the first half on a bucket from Kellogg and Jones’ putback to extend the lead to 33-25 at intermission.
At 34-25 in the first minute of the second half, PHS finally made its first 3-pointer as Flanagan’s long range bomb ignited a mini 7-2 surge. With 4 ½ minutes remaining in the third period, the MHS lead had been trimmed to 37-32.
Similar to the way the evening played out, MHS had yet another response and pulled back ahead 49-36 as Jones converted an and-one then made another bucket with 53 seconds remaining in the period.
“At halftime, the feeling was just about playing our games,” Jones said. “You knew they were going to make runs, so we just had to play our game.
“PHS is a good team. They are probably a state tournament team, so it was a good experience seeing them twice this season.”
PHS pulled to within single digits for the last time at 49-40 on Flanagan’s trey 40 seconds into the fourth quarter. MHS made the Big Reds pay for doubling-down on Jones as the senior recorded assists on back-to-back 3-pointers from Brenna Nelson followed by another from DeVries.
The unselfishness is a constant from the MHS players.
“You saw that tonight – they always make that extra pass,” Fowkes siad. “If you focus on No. 12 (Kellogg), it’s going to open for No. 4 (DeVries) or No. 5 (Jones). We are really hard to guard.
“I have a lot of film on the top 10 teams in the state and after watching PHS play they are right there in the top three to four teams in the state.”
A six-minute field goal drought in the second half didn’t help matters for the Big Reds as they fell behind 55-40.
“I didn’t think we played horrible,” Murray said. “A lot of it is how can we grow from this. We will evaluate and see what we can do to get better. I was proud of the girls. I think we played hard.
“This was not an overly great week shooting-wise for us. But that’s our identity, so we will fix that. We’re (13-5), so we have played really good basketball.”
Contact Kerry Patrick at kpatrick@newsandsentinel.com
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