Charleston – Eleven years ago Wyoming East arrived on the scene in Charleston and changed the landscape of girls basketball in West Virginia.
Class AA has historically belonged to Region 3 with 22 of the 24 title games this century featuring an area team and 14 of them having been won by one.
Hinton and Summers County were the first powers before James Monroe took the reins for three years. Summers re-emerged and established the greatest dynasty the girls side has seen before Westside took the baton from 2012-2014.
And then the red-headed step children from the east side of Wyoming County took their turn as the longest-running top dog of the region, rivaling the reign of those Summers teams in length.
In 2015 a group primarily led by underclassmen standouts captured the No. 1 overall seed in Class AA before bowing out in the state semis. Everything changed over the next 10 years. Seven state championship game appearances and four titles later, the Lady Warriors now find themselves at the end of an era.
There have been challengers to their thrown in the region – Mingo Central, Westside, Bluefield, Summers County – but East has outlasted them all in the long run and even beaten one of them (Summers) in a state championship game.
Now there’s a new, sustained challenger.
One way or another this week will mark the closing of a lengthy title window that rarely ever exists in high school sports, especially in small communities.
Whether it comes on Friday or Saturday, starters Abi Baker, Kyndal Lusk and Rylee Brown will play their final games in an East jersey. Baker and Lusk are the last holdovers to play in the 2024 state title game, a victory in which they registered a combined 58 minutes, including the climactic final four that saw them close on a 15-0 run to win 46-42.
When they’re gone, it will mark the first time since that 2014-2015 season that East will not return a single all-state player. Even in their transition season between eras in 2020 they were able to lean on a returning all-stater in point guard Skylar Davidson to bridge the gap between reloads.
In the wings waiting to take East’s place is reflection of its greatest hits.
A gifted freshman with Mary Ostrowski Award expectations down the road – is that Gabby Lupardus or Lydia Dunlap? Both players even come from the same AAU team.
A freshman who contributed as a role player and made the leap to first team all-stater as a sophomore? The Maddie Clark-Mya Dunlap parallels are there.
A talented sophomore group that features numerous starters? James Monroe is asking Peighton Griffith, Kendall Long, Monaka Moore and Trinity Hill to carry the same weight the 2021 version of Wyoming East asked sophomores Abby Russell, Kayley Bane and Colleen Lookabill did for that championship squad.
And then there are the coaches – leaders that are nearly carbon copies of each other. Both were first team all-state point guards players. Both have won at titles in different capacities – East head coach Ryan Davidson as an assistant and head coach and James Monroe’s Shari Helvey twice as a player.
“It’s a tough defense. That’s how we teach it, that’s how we play it.” – Shari Helvey.
“I can tell you exactly what I said, ‘That was his last (timeout) and he can’t save them again so let’s go get them. That’s exactly what it was. And sometimes it works in your favor. Sometimes it doesn’t. And it did today, but we knew that. We could really turn it up at that point because there was no way they could go except throw it to us or throw it out of bounds.” – Ryan Davidson.
They even sound the same when talking about their defenses and the confidence they have in their abilities to teach it and have their players execute it.
Take their barriers down, befriend them and speak candidly with the two. You’ll realize you’re speaking to the same person.
They’ll butt heads in the state semifinals Friday afternoon in Charleston, bringing those philosophies with different positions.
Helvey’s team is poised to be the next Region 3 team that annually fills one of the slots on Championship Saturday.
Wyoming East, which had its streak of six consecutive title game appearances snapped last season in a quarterfinal loss to James Monroe, won’t willingly hand over that baton and gets one last chance to directly defend it.
James Monroe is just scratching the surface with zero seniors and only two juniors in what’s developed into a nine man rotation. Wyoming East feels good about its current middle school group but they won’t arrive until this group of Mavericks cycle through.
All great dynasties in sports go through that same cyclical transition. From the Showtime Lakers to the Bad Boys Pistons to the Jordan Chicago Bulls. There’s always somebody waiting in the wings ready to dethrone you.
The only question now is when?
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