WVU Ladies Drop Opener To Arizona | News, Sports, Jobs

WVU’s JJ Quinnerly drives to the basket Friday afternoon against Arizona. The Mountaineers lost.

MORGANTOWN — And then there had been none …

West Virginia’s women’s basketball group was eliminated from the NCAA Championships in the initial round Thursday in College Park, Md., just as the men’s group was a day earlier in Birmingham, Ala.

The ladies, carrying a No. ten seed, ran into an Arizona group, seeded 7th, that just had a tiny bit as properly considerably in all places and spot collectively a sturdy second-half to claim a 75-62 victory that most likely defined the variations amongst the two teams.

“I believed our young ladies battled,” Coach Dawn Plitzuweit stated. “We started down in the initial quarter, sort of dug ourselves a hole. I believed our resilience and our toughness sort of showed through. I believed we continued to function, to attack.”

The Mountaineers got scuffed about in the initial quarter, offering up 28 points, which was a season-larger for the 24th ranked Wildcats, falling behind 28-17.

“They genuinely pushed the ball in transition. We had a difficult time acquiring back and stopping the ball. We fouled a lot in the initial quarter,” senior guard Madisen Smith, getting played her final game at WVU quickly following a profession that spot her amongst the most helpful to play at the college.

Recovering its composure in the second quarter, the Mountaineers narrowed the halftime deficit to 40-35 and turned the game in their favor and developed a sturdy run at Arizona to narrow the distinction to 50-47.

The Wildcats, nonetheless, did not panic, even even although they had been devoid of their most helpful player, Shaina Pellington, and generally began pounding the ball inside specifically exactly where Cate Reese could compile a game-major 25 points and specifically exactly where WVU’s former teammate, Esmery Martinez, would carve a double-double out of 13 points and a dozen rebounds.

“It was cool to play against her. Superb to see her after once again. She’s a terrific player,” Smith stated.

“For me, it wasn’t as properly weird. I only played with her for a year. I imply, I’m cool with her. We was laughing and joking on the court,” WVU’s JJ Quinerly, who completed the larger scorer with 19 points. “Just one particular additional player, just one particular additional game..

Quinerly, it turned out, was the only offense WVU had quickly following they drew to inside three points. She scored 12 of her 19 points in the second half. At a single point she scored 11 of the 13 points could muster at that time.

Arizona’s ball handling, it had 19 assists on 30 baskets, and its rebounding, hauling down 49 rebounds to just 35 for the Mountaineers, permitted the Wildcats to manage every single issue about the game.

WVU’s inability to do a thing on its offensive glass was crushing as it had only 3 second-possibility points.

Quinerly would not pin that on a size distinction, even although.

“I do not look at it was their size,” she stated, “I can not genuinely say it hurt us. A lot additional that we could have just did higher. We could have did higher just sustaining them off the boards, every single issue, so…”

So, it ended badly. WVU completed with a 19-12 record, most likely reaching a lot additional that was anticipated in a transition year.

“I told our players in the locker location I do not look at a lot of people, when this whole situation started considerably much less than a year ago, would have stated that our young ladies would have had a possibility to be battling and have a possibility to do the troubles that we’ve carried out this year,” Plitzuweit stated.

Just ahead of the game, Plitzuweit says she shared a story with her group that went along with this season.

“I’m not a fairly amazing golfer, correct? When golf balls had been invented, they had been smooth. There weren’t dents or dimples in them. As promptly as they’d get hit by a golf club, they realized the a lot additional density they had in the golf ball, the farther it would go,” she began.

“That was sort of like us in the course of the course of our time expanding, there was a lot of adversity, a lot of studying.

“When there’s a transition, it is complicated,” she continued. “Our young ladies had to uncover a new plan, a new style, all these sort of troubles. We weren’t as thriving as we wanted to be early on.

We continued to battle, create, spot some dents in the golf ball, if you will. It kept going more. When we completed, I believed our young ladies genuinely battled and continued to get higher as the season wore on.”

That is just her way of searching for toward subsequent year, as if standing on the tee and shouting “Fore!”

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