After Greenbrier East watched Wayne connect on 11-of-20 3-pointers in a Class AAA semifinal loss Friday morning Greenbrier West suffered the same fate.
No. 2 Tug Valley canned 12-of-24 treys in the Class A semifinal, ending No. 6 Greenbrier West’s state tournament run 77-52 Friday evening in the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
Tug advances to its second title game in four years where it will meet No. 1 Gilmer County on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
While the long ball was a massive part of the Lady Cavaliers’ undoing, it wasn’t the only factor. They committed 29 turnovers, struggling with Tug Valley’s pressure.
“First quarter we had a lot of turnovers,” West head coach Mark Agee said. “We just weren’t playing like the same team we were yesterday. We turned over the ball. We weren’t shooting the ball really well. But I feel like we didn’t back down the whole time. We kept fighting.”
Kenzie Browning’s 3 to open the contest was a bad omen for the Cavaliers. They kept pace through the first six minutes, getting to within two points at 11-9 when Maddie Fields nailed a jumper but a 7-0 run, capped by a Katelynn Richardson 3 in the waning seconds to put Tug up 18-9.
That opened the floodgates.
Haven Deskins and Browning opened the second frame with a pair of 3s, pushing the lead to 15 just 30 seconds in. Attempting to cut the lead, West missed a pair of point-blank layups while the Panthers stayed hot from range.
Deskin and Browning added two more 3s each in the frame with Richardson adding one at the buzzer, caping a frame that saw Tug nail seven long balls.
It was a stark contrast from Tug’s quarterfinal game against Webster County where it scored just 13 points in the first half.
“I felt their energy all day today,” Tug head coach Seth Ooten said. “They were more prepared mentally. We went and had a shootaround. I even asked them why they was getting ready in the locker room. I asked my coaches I said, ‘How did they look?’ and they said, ‘They look ready.’ And you know, I think you saw that. They came out here and a lot of it is you hit a couple shots, you get rolling and when you miss the first three, four shots, then you start feeling a little bit more pressure, and I thought we did a good job starting fast.”
The long-range assault put the Panthers ahead 43-17. Two minutes into the third the lead had ballooned to 30 and never fell below 20 the rest of the way.
While’s Tug’s long-range attack clicked, West never found a rhythm, shooting just 1-of-17 from downtown and 11-of-25 from the free throw line.
“I don’t count my chickens before they hatch but I thought we would push through. I really did,” Agee said.
The loss brought to an end the careers of 1,000-point sorcerers Preslee Treadway and Maddie Fields. Treadway, the school’s all-time leading scorer, finished with 25 points and 12 rebounds while Fields netted 22 points with nine rebounds.
“It’s definitely a blessing to go this far but it sucks to go out this way,”an emotional Treadway said.
Deskins led Tug with 23 points while Bailee Hall finished with 15 points and 15 rebounds. Browning added 16.
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