Charleston – For the 22nd time this century a Region 3 team will play in the Class AA state title game.
It’s just a different one than most have become accustomed to over the last decade.
No. 1 James Monroe overcame a poor shooting outing from beyond the arc to finish a season sweep of regional foe and No. 5-seeded Wyoming East in a 49-30 victory over the Lady Warriors Friday afternoon in the Class AA state semifinals at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
The win sends the Lady Mavericks to the state title game for the first time since 2003 where they’ll face No. 2 Williamstown on Saturday at 12:30 p.m., seeking the program’s first title since winning back-to back championships in 2001 and ’02.
In a meeting of powers past and future, neither could find the stroke with the Mavericks shooting 1-for-27 from beyond the arc and Wyoming East shooting 10-for-44 overall. But James Monroe made up for it by utilizing its size and going 20-for-39 inside the arc.
“Well, we better not shoot like that tomorrow, huh?” James Monroe head coach Shari Helvey chuckled. “My thought is obviously I know (Wyoming East head coach) Ryan (Davidson) very well. I’m proud of Region 3. Look at us! We had two semifinal teams and I think that that’s just excellent for Southern West Virginia and I’m so proud to be from there.
“I thought our kids played really good defense today. I thought it wasn’t the prettiest win but we’re standing here heading to the state championship. After two years of coming up short in the semifinals this really feels good right now.”
“When I see them the first thing I see is a lot of really, really tall girls – what we’re not” Davidson said. “At the end of the day that matters. They’re skilled, they do all the other stuff really well but size matters. They were posting us with three different players. I thought we fought – and they’re good. Well-coached.
“When your height has skill, well that’s an extra problem. If your height is not skilled we can figure some stuff out but if your length and size can put it on the floor, that’s rough and then I’m asking 5-foot-5 to box out 6-foot-1. It’s a fight. They’re good. They deserve the win and everything they’ve got.”
With starters Lydia Dunlap and Monaka Moore battling foul trouble all evening, the Mavericks relied on their bench for answers and found them. Freshman Grayson Johnson and sophomore Trinity Hill combined for 17 points in 37 minutes off the pine.
“I think it’s been a strong suit for us,” Helvey said. “I thought, at the beginning of the game – some of these kids that come off our bench would start for anybody. Trinity always plays so well against them because of the size and I thought today her poise and her control was juts phenomenal. Sometimes you see her get a little sped up and maybe take a shot I don’t like but I thought today she did so well.
“Gray came in and played great defense. Really was active and with her you really can tell wetters she’s ready to play when you see her in pregame. You either know she’s locked in or she’s going to not be. I don’t really care for 0-of-5 (from 3) because I know she can knock down, she can shoot better than that from 3 so hopefully she can do that tomorrow. The bench has always been our strong suit. For the last month-and-a-half it really is.”
Kendall Long, who finished with six steals, nailed the only 3 of the game on the first shot attempt of the afternoon. East responded with its first points on a long Reagan Bower floater but watched Dunlap sisters Mya and Lydia combine for the next eight points.
A free throw each from East’s Abi Baker and Coley Tolliver made it an 11-4 game after a quarter with a Tolliver layup cutting the deficit to five early in the second quarter. But while East’s defense held James Monroe to a single field goal over the first three minutes of the quarter, it’s offense couldn’t match the effort with a 9-1 run putting East in a double digit deficit at 20-7.
The struggles continued on both sides with James Monroe taking a 24-12 advantage into the break but as they have all season the Lady Mavs used the third quarter to springboard to victory.
A 10-1 run that featured six points from Mya Dunlap effectively end East’s hopes of returning to the title game.
“I was pretty unhappy with our execution in the first half,” Helvey said. “I thought maybe some kids who were coming off the bench didn’t understand what I wanted to do. I want the ball to touch the paint against them. Yeah, we went 1-of-27 (from 3) so even more reason to touch the paint a little bit more. I think that that happened a little more. We were cutting, we were getting open shots, we just need to be bale to hit one tomorrow.
“At halftime we continued with our defensive gameplan but I’m not sure what we did different offensively but we started hitting some shots in the paint and that was one of our keys – play inside out.”
The loss brings an end to careers of senior starters Abi Baker, Kyndal Lusk and Rylee Brown with the former two the only remaining players to see the court during the Lady Warriors’ title run in 2024. Both were a big part of that win with Baker hitting the tying and go-ahead shots in the final minute of that victory.
“It’s been special,” Davidson said. “You’re talking about a 10-year run at a school with 400 or 380 students. That’s four-A stuff. It comes back to the work and what we think the culture is at Wyoming East. Teams better enjoy it right now because we’re going to be back.
“I promise you we’ll be talking again way sooner than what people think. So, live it up and you should. I’m not saying that in a derogatory way. But I did. We enjoyed every bit of it, every second of it and you better because stuff’s cyclical. It’s going to cycle and it always does. So I’ve enjoyed every bit of it.”
For the one-loss Mavericks the win sets up a matchup with an unfamiliar foe in Williamstown, which rallied from a 13-point deficit in its semifinal win over Wheeling Central, holding the Maroon Knights to just six points in the second half of their Friday matchup.
“Two similar teams it looks like, right?” Helvey said. “Both play hard man-to-man defense. We may have a little more size and length but they are quick, they are well-coached and I’m sure he will have a thought about how to defend our offense. This is something that in November I tried to prepare them for – to play good defense and execute offensively.
“I don’t know if last year in our state semifinal game we could do that and it showed. There is always that in the back of my mind – how do we execute offensively because you’ve got to make shots. You gotta be able to hit something when it’s crunch time. I feel like the preparation is there from our end. Let’s see if we can execute it.”
The Dunlap sisters each scored 12 in the win with Lydia grabbing 12 rebounds and Mya 14.
Baker led East with 10 points while Coley Tolliver grabbed 10 rebounds.
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