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Glenville State 88, Charleston 69 | Final Stats
By Duane Cochran for Mountain East.org
WHEELING, W.Va. – Another year and another Mountain East Conference Tournament championship game appearance for Glenville State.
Saturday afternoon the Pioneers clicked pretty much on all cylinders on both ends of the floor as they earned their fourth straight MEC title game appearance and their fifth since the league formed in 2013-14 with a convincing 88-69 semifinal-round victory over Notre Dame here at WesBanco Arena.
The win improved 18th-ranked Glenville to 12-2 on the year and sets up a meeting with 13th-ranked University of Charleston Sunday at 1 p.m. for the league tournament championship. The Golden Eagles (16-2) eliminated Wheeling in Saturday's other semifinal round game, 71-55.
Charleston and Glenville split their regular-season meetings this season. The Golden Eagles won 91-86 on Jan. 10 in Glenville, while the Pioneers prevailed, 83-81, in a Feb. 24 showdown in Charleston.
Glenville State and Charleston have met in two previous MEC title games with the Pioneers winning both (2014 and 2019).
“I think it's going to be two of the top teams in the league, two of the top teams in the country and definitely two of the top teams in the region which are going to come in here and battle Sunday,” GSC coach Kim Stephens said. “It'll be a good game for people to watch.”
Saturday Glenville didn't waste much time taking control of its contest with Notre Dame. The teams took turns trading the lead the first five minutes, but in the second part of the opening quarter the Pioneers began to exert themselves taking a 27-15 advantage at the end of the initial quarter.
“I was really pleased with our first quarter,” Stephens said. “We played a little bit tight after that. Notre Dame is a really good basketball team and we knew they had the ability to come back at any time.
“We had the defensive energy we needed early on. We were flying around the way I like to see our team fly around in the first quarter and then we got back to doing that in the fourth quarter and that was good to see.”
Glenville turned Notre Dame over 15 times in the opening 20 minutes and turned those 15 turnovers into 14 points and eventually a 43-32 lead at the break.
Glenville's Zakiyah Winfield had nine points, two rebounds, two assists and two steals in the first half, but wasn't particularly happy with her play. Thus, she changed shoes at intermission and upped her level of play. She finished with a team-high 25 points, 16 of which came in the final two quarters, six rebounds, five assists and three steals.
“I bring two pairs of shoes with me and I put one pair on to start the game and see how I do in the first half with them,” Winfield said with a laugh. “If I'm not liking it, I switch them. Usually it goes to my advantage when I switch my shoes and today it did. It's kinda my superstition.”
Winfield definitely found offensive success against the Falcons in the final 20 minutes, particularly on drives to the basket.
“When you play against someone who goes 10-for-18 from the field that's tough to guard,” Notre Dame standout junior guard Jada Marone, who led the Falcons with 25 points herself Saturday, said. “She makes her free throws. She's got a quick first step. She's the fire and heart of that team I think. She plays with a lot of passion and once she gets going she's hard to slow down and stop.”
The Pioneers were really able to exploit Notre Dame in the paint Saturday. GSC outscored the Falcons 48-28 in the restricted area.
“This is a game of runs and we came out early and tried to battle and respond to it,” Notre Dame coach Lauren Macer said. “They just got a few more runs and longer runs than we wanted them to.
“We had a solid post presence today, but we really just ended up trading baskets with them. We went through periods where we were getting stops and not getting scores or we were not getting either. It was really a game of some missed opportunities for us and we weren't able to capitalize on those for all four quarters.”
Joining Winfield in double figures for Glenville were Dazha Congleton, who finished with 13 points and three steals and Abby Stoller, who contributed 12 points and a game-high eight rebounds.
As noted, Marone led NDC with 25 points and five rebounds. The Falcons, who fell to 14-4 with the loss, also got 12 points and seven rebounds from Tamia Ridley and 12 points from Jennifer Oduho.
Notre Dame hopes to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Division II Atlantic Regional which will be played beginning next Friday in Columbus, Ohio. The Falcons were ranked seventh in the latest regional rankings. The top six teams this season will earn bids to the national tournament.
Charleston 71, Wheeling 55 | Final Stats
By Duane Cochran for Mountain East.org
WHEELING, W.Va. – Mountain East Conference Player of the Year Brooklyn Pannell has done some outstanding things for 13th-ranked Charleston this season.
However, when the conference's leading scorer was forced to take a seat with 6:10 remaining in the third quarter of the MEC Tournament semifinals Saturday afternoon here at WesBanco Arena with four fouls and her team deadlocked at 37 in a battle with pesky Wheeling University things didn't look great for the Golden Eagles.
Looks, though, can be deceiving as UC quickly proved. The Golden Eagles also showed they're much, much more than a one-woman team.
With Pannell, who had scored 41 points in a regular-season victory over Wheeling on the bench, UC exploded on a 15-3 run to close out the final 6:10 of the third quarter and go on to a 71-55 victory over the Cardinals.
“All year players like Abby Lee, Haley Moore, Nas (Anastasiia Zakharova) and Trinity (Palacio) have given us big minutes,” UC coach Tianni Kelly said. “Today they were excellent, especially in the third and fourth quarters.
“Nas was all over the place. Defensively she was everywhere. She pushed the ball in transition. She got herself to the rim. Abby Lee was big too, especially defensively. A lot of those players, their stats don't show the impact they have for us on the floor in games.”
Charleston's dominance continued early in the final quarter. The run eventually ballooned to 23-3 before Wheeling broke a scoring drought of 8:34. However, by then the Golden Eagles had already built a 20-point lead and the contest, for all intents and purposes, was over.
“Honestly I don't think I've ever seen a scoring drought that long and I didn't even know it was that long,” Kelly said. “We were huge defensively during that period. It's something we've preached the entire year. We say our defense is what sparks our offense.
“I'm just proud of the way we continued to fight, the way we stuck to the game plan and the way we helped each other and communicated. The girls were phenomenal on defense.”
The victory improved Charleston to 16-2 on the year and earns the Golden Eagles a berth in Sunday's MEC Tournament championship game at 1 p.m.
Wheeling finished its season at 9-9.
“We played a great first half against a really good team,” Wheeling coach Mike Llanas said. “We had some kids step up. Lilly (Ritz) had a great half and our sophomore, Jacqui Hinesmon, had a really good half going 3-for-4 from the field and 3-for-3 from the line. We were in a great position and that put a lot of pressure on them coming out in the second half.
“They got some second-chance opportunities in the second half and I thought Anastasiia (Zakharova) really made some plays for them. She was really active. She knocked down a couple of shots from the perimeter, she rebounded and drove to the basket pretty hard and drew some fouls. She really helped propel their comeback.”
Three catalysts for Charleston's impressive second-half offensive surge were Dakota Reeves, Anastasiia Zakharova and Erykah Russell who combined for 35 of the Golden Eagles' 44 points in the final two quarters. Reeves finished with 15 points, 13 of which came in the last two quarters. She accounted for seven of UC's points on the initial game-changing 15-3 spurt in the third quarter and gave her team the lead for good at 42-39 on a 3-pointer with 4:21 left in the third.
“I felt really good getting back in my zone because I was struggling a little bit,” Reeves said. “As soon I started, we just started rolling as a team. We had an amazing third quarter which really put us out there.”
Zakharova scored 12 of her 15 points in the second half, while Russell, who also battled foul trouble, canned 10 of her 12 points in the game's final 20 minutes.
Wheeling shot 48.3 percent (14-of-29) from the field in the first two quarters and locked down defensively on UC holding the Golden Eagles to a 9-of-34 performance (26.5 percent).
The tide, though, turned in the final two quarters as the Cardinals struggled immensely to score. Wheeling connected on just 8-of-27 second-half field goals (29.6 percent), while UC buried 16-of-30 attempts (53.3 percent).
Jacqui Hinesmon turned in her best performance of the season to lead Wheeling with 14 points and four rebounds. The Cardinals' standout junior forward Lilly Ritz posted a double-double finishing with 12 points and 14 rebounds. The 12 points, however, were a season-low for Ritz.
“They did a really good job of sending an extra player down on me and at times I didn't see them,” Ritz said. “They also did a good job of getting in the passing lanes.”
Palacio chipped in eight points for UC, while Pannell finished with seven points – all of which came in the first half. The seven points were a season low for Pannell. It was the first time this season that she did not score in double figures for the Golden Eagles.
Sunday's championship game appearance will be the third for Charleston in the Mountain East Conference Tournament. The Golden Eagles lost both of their previous title game appearances to Glenville State in 2014 (74-50) and in 2019 (78-69).