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Morris, ’Jackets best St. Marys

WILLIAMSTOWN — All-stater Ashley Morris pumped in 14 of her game-high 30 points in the third quarter here Tuesday night as host Williamstown swept the season series from St. Marys following a dominant second half which led to an easy 64-47 win.

The two Little Kanawha Conference West Division rivals both entered the fray ranked in the latest Class A poll. The No. 9 Blue Devils (9-4), who had knocked off previously unbeaten Frontier (12-0) by a score of 57-40 on Monday night in the championship game of the 13th annual St. Marys Invitational, appeared to have things going their way up 28-25 at intermission.

However, the seventh-ranked Yellowjackets, who improved to 9-3 and snapped the Blue Devils’ five-game winning streak, limited the Blue Devils to just 19 points after the break and that included a 16-4 edge in the final eight minutes.

“The big thing is we went with a little contain lineup in the second half,” said WHS head coach Fred Sauro, whose club handed St. Marys a 75-70 setback in Pleasants County two days after Christmas. “We played Courtney Dotson and Ashley Morris together. Besides that, we got some of our best defensive people on the floor at the same time and that helped I think.

“I thought they played so hard. I was so proud of their effort and how they came out ready, physically and mentally ready to play. Sometimes we come out kind of soft, but boy we didn’t do that. I was really proud of the way our kids stepped up. Their hands were everywhere and we were getting loose balls.”

Aside from Morris, who scored the final five points of the third to give the hosts a 48-43 cushion, the Yellowjackets got 11 points from Samantha Dedrick, eight from Bethany Arnold and pair of second-half 3s from BreeAnn Reynolds.

“I think we were pretty happy because it didn’t really feel like we were down,” Morris said of the mood at intermission facing the three-point deficit. “We thought we were playing pretty good and then we came out and played even better in the second half.

“We had to keep it up because we could tell they were getting tired. We just wanted to wear them down, keep playing good defense and getting the runouts and getting down the court.”

That’s exactly what happened as the Blue Devils missed 19 of 27 field goals after the break and finished with 22 turnovers, 11 in each half.

Jenna Nichols, who finished with 17 points and a game-high seven assists, hit a 3 via a Jordan Fox assist with 17 ticks left in the opening stanza to give the visitors a 22-17 cushion. That five point deficit remained to start the fourth, but Arnold had a pair of putbacks, Dedrick has a steal and a lay-in and then she followed it with a wide open 3-pointer to put St. Marys in a 57-45 hole with 5:22 to go.

“Their all-stater (Morris) took over and we just couldn’t get enough done on offense,” said St. Marys head man Howard Meeks, whose program welcomes in Tolsia at 2 p.m. Saturday for a varsity only tip in the second round of the West Virginia Hometown Invitational Tournament. “I thought Jenna Nichols really stepped up tonight and other girls hustled and stuff.

“We just didn’t get enough contributions out of everybody. We had a lot of positives. The easy thing is to say we had a tough one last night (Monday) and beat an undefeated team that’s really nice, but that’s all hogwash. It’s do or do not. There is no try.”

Kylee Buzzard double-doubled with 11 points and 11 rebounds in the setback. Fox also finished with 11 markers.

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