Hinton – Carrying the No. 1 ranking in the state invites one of two responses – eagerness for the challenge or fear.
Summers County head coach Doug Trail wasn’t pleased with the response of his Bobcats on the night they welcomed top-ranked James Monroe.
The Bobcats struggled by every measurable metric Tuesday, falling to the Mavericks 72-20 in a game that got out of hand early.
Trail didn’t mince words afterwards.
“I’m disappointed,” Trail said. “We played pretty good last week and we were getting better. The kids’ eyes were (wide) tonight. They were absolutely afraid of the moment and that’s disappointing because I know we can’t beat them but I thought we would come out here and compete and we didn’t.”
The numbers laid it all out. The Mavericks made more field goals (33) than Summers attempted (28) and grabbed more offensive rebounds (28) than Summers did total rebounds (23).
The 28 offensive boards comprised most of James Monroe’s rebound total with just 15 more coming on the defensive end. Between those 28 second chance looks and the 26 turnovers committed by Summers, the Mavs generated over 50 extra chances and possessions.
“We’re pretty passionated about that full-court man,” James Monroe head coach Shari Helvey said. “I think we have the length, the athleticism to play it a lot. Obviously when we played them in December we caused a lot of turnovers with not and I think that was still the game plan with it. That’s what we want tot do. We want to use our length and our height and our athleticism to our advantage. You’ll see me doing that a lot.”
The rebounding totals were key in deciding the outcome as the Mavericks often generated second and third shot attempts on one possession.
“We challenge them and there’s certain goals we have as a team,” Helvey said. “One is to not allow more than 10 (offensive rebounds) and I should probably make a goal for us. When we hit the boards like that it’s pretty hard to contain us. I think that’s one of our strengths. Maybe we don’t need to have that as a goal. Monaka (Moore) will get in there and she’s averaging maybe nine rebounds a game now and Lyd (Dunlap) is going to be Lyd and she’s going to be active too. We really challenge our guards to do it too. Mya (Dunlap) is averaging seven boards right now too and that gets her going on the offensive end too and that’s great.”
Lydia Dunlap was the main engine on the offensive glass, hauling in eight rebounds on that end while guard Kendall Long tallied nine total boards to go along with a game-high 23 points.
The underclassman duo connected to open the game when Long fed Dunlap for a layup. The latter kept the momentum rolling with another two-pointer off a steal before serving as the distributor and hitting Long for anther two.
It was all a part of what mounted to a 14-0 run to open the game, snapped only by a Jaelynn Boone layup with 33 seconds to play in the opening quarter.
Buckets by Long and Dunlap in the final 30 seconds served as a response and the game was never in doubt afterwards.
“We got better and we just didn’t show it tonight,” Trail said. “That disappointed me because we had gotten better. Not tonight.”
For James Monroe it was another step towards locking up the top overall seed in the region.
“I think they’re handling it very well,” Helvey said. “They’re kids that get better every day. I do think they’re doing well in that sense. As far as the seedings and the No. 1 stuff, it’s kind of like – you see the NCAA Tournament, you’re going to have top play and beat anybody. You’re going to see the best teams there. Whether we have the 1 seed or the 8 seed we know that we’re going to have to play the best team or who you’re going to face.”
Lydia Dunlap netted 14 points to flank Long while Mya added 13. Boone led Summers with 12.
James Monroe
Mya Dunlap 13, Kendall Long 23, Peighton Griffith 2, Monaka Moore 6, Lydia Dunlap 14, Raleigh Jackson 2, Trinity Hill 10, Chylin Eggleston 2
Summers County
Lynnzie Farley 6, Jaelynn Boone 12, Carly Persinger 2
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