Gallery by Heather Belcher
White Sulphur Springs – Maddie Clark’s ballet days are behind her but she still knows how to perform in a ballroom.
The junior all-stater scored nine of her 23 points in a decisive second quarter as Class AA No. 1 Wyoming East defeated Class AAA No. 5 Nitro 69-46 in the ballroom of Colonial Hall at the Battle for the Springhouse at The Greenbrier.
For East it was the same song and dance through a quarter.
A slow start on offense put the Lady Warriors behind 15-9 after a quarter with Nitro taking advantage of easy looks on runouts.
Once locked in the Lady Warriors took those looks away, hampering the Wildcat offense.
“They were leaking out a player every time they got a rebound,” Clark said. “They’d just leak somebody and Get a wide open layup so we just started putting one back so they couldn’t do that and I think defensively that’s how we stopped their breaks. We just pushed the ball as much as we could and took our layups.”
After East took a 3-2 lead on a Cadee Blackburn trey, Karson Jones tied the game for the Wildcats and a pair of deuces on runouts from Taylor Maddox and Ava Edwards broke to stalemate. Nitro extended the lead to eight points later in the quarter after a Hayley Newsome layup before Clark arrived on the scene with a pair of layups, generating momentum at the end of the frame.
Nitro extended its lead back to five early in the second quarter after an Ava Edwards layup before the downpour ensued. A Clark layup and Abby Russell 3, the latter of whom returned from a five-game injury absence, ignited a 24-2 run to close the quarter with Clark and Blackburn combining for 20 of the team’s 27 points in the quarter.
“We ran a pick and roll because they have a player that sags down a little bit,” Clark said. “They kind of switch it so I just went off the screen, hesitated and drove because when I went up they went up and the layup was wide open.”
The Lady Warriors shot 10 of 15 from the field in the quarter, converting on four of their five free throw attempts. They were just as effective on the defensive side, limiting a foul-plagued Nitro team to 2 of 13 shooting from the field with seven turnovers in the frame.
“Our defensive intensity picked up,” East head coach Angie Boninsegna said. “We were letting them penetrate the middle and dish and they got easy looks and our defense started picking up a lot better in the second quarter and it turned into offense for us.”
Blackburn and Clark both turned in proficient efforts on the offensive side of the ball. Clark scored a season-high 23 points on 9 of 13 shooting and dished seven assists while Blackburn netted 24 on 9 of 15 shooting.
It marked the first time this season East had two players score over 20 points in a game.
“I think Maddie did an excellent job in the second quarter,” Boninsegna said. “She penetrated well and got some excellent looks and made some tough layups. Their big girl was tough and she’s hard to against. Maddie had such good body control that she went in there and in that second quarter she took a lot of good shots and made a lot of good passes out to the corner and Blackburn hit some key shots too.
“They both had really good games but I think our depth helped us today. Abby coming back helped us. Alivia (Monroe) came in and did really well in the paint against (Karson Jones). I think Laken (Toler) gave us some good minutes. Our bench came through and I think we were a little deeper.”
Nitro, trailing by as many as 19 points in the third quarter, cut the deficit to 12 early in the fourth but was outscored 20-9 the rest of the way.
East improves to 14-2 and will play the winner of Friday evening’s matchup between Greenbrier East and Mingo Central.