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 have 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 well a great deal in all locations and place with each other a robust second-half to claim a 75-62 victory that likely defined the variations involving the two teams.

“I believed our young ladies battled,” Coach Dawn Plitzuweit mentioned. “We began down in the initial quarter, sort of dug ourselves a hole. I believed our resilience and our toughness sort of showed by way of. I believed we continued to operate, to attack.”

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

“They definitely pushed the ball in transition. We had a really hard time obtaining back and stopping the ball. We fouled a lot in the initial quarter,” senior guard Madisen Smith, getting played her final game at WVU right after a profession that place her amongst the finest 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 produced a robust run at Arizona to narrow the distinction to 50-47.

The Wildcats, on the other hand, did not panic, even even though they have been with out their finest player, Shaina Pellington, and basically started pounding the ball inside exactly where Cate Reese could compile a game-top 25 points and 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. Superior to see her once more. She’s a terrific player,” Smith mentioned.

“For me, it wasn’t as well 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 higher scorer with 19 points. “Just an additional player, just an additional game..

Quinerly, it turned out, was the only offense WVU had right after they drew to inside 3 points. She scored 12 of her 19 points in the second half. At 1 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 handle almost everything about the game.

WVU’s inability to do something on its offensive glass was crushing as it had only three second-opportunity points.

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

“I do not consider it was their size,” she mentioned, “I cannot definitely say it hurt us. Additional that we could have just did improved. We could have did improved just maintaining them off the boards, almost everything, so…”

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

“I told our players in the locker area I do not consider several people today, when this entire issue began much less than a year ago, would have mentioned that our young ladies would have had a opportunity to be battling and have a opportunity to do the issues that we’ve completed this year,” Plitzuweit mentioned.

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

“I’m not a pretty very good golfer, suitable? When golf balls have been invented, they have been smooth. There weren’t dents or dimples in them. As quickly as they’d get hit by a golf club, they realized the additional density they had in the golf ball, the farther it would go,” she started.

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

“When there’s a transition, it is difficult,” she continued. “Our young ladies had to study a new program, a new style, all these sort of issues. We weren’t as profitable as we wanted to be early on.

We continued to battle, develop, place some dents in the golf ball, if you will. It kept going additional. When we completed, I believed our young ladies definitely battled and continued to get improved as the season wore on.”

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

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