Williamstown’s Faith Pickens, who finished with game-highs of 25 points, 19 rebounds and four blocks, challenges a shot by Parkersburg Catholic’s Izzy DeAngelo during the Yellowjackets’ 67-49 victory Friday night. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

WILLIAMSTOWN — Faith Pickens went for game-highs of 25 points, 19 rebounds and four blocked shots here Friday night for host Williamstown as the Yellowjackets swept the regular season series from Little Kanawha Conference West Division rival Parkersburg Catholic, 67-49.

When the two Class AA squads met on Jan. 12, current No. 4 Williamstown upended now sixth-ranked Parkersburg Catholic, 42-35. Although the Crusaderettes (8-5, 6-2) of head coach Marty Vierheller only trailed 27-25 midway through the second quarter, the ‘Jackets ended the half on a 12-0 run and never looked back.

Arissa Burt added 17 points while Anna Cosner and Riley Landis, who had seven rebounds and four assists, chipped in nine counters apiece. WHS (13-3, 8-0) also received five points and a game-high nine assists from Georgie Inman.

“There’s only so much you can do. You can’t teach size,” admitted Vierheller, whose team plays host Monday to Ravenswood.

“Faith had a really nice night tonight, an excellent night. Took advantage of the opportunities she saw and she did a great job. My hats are off to them. They did a great job.”

Jocelynn Thorn paced the Crusaderettes with 15 points. Izzy DeAngleo pumped in 10 of her 14 counters in the first half.

Morgan Sampson’s 3 to open the second quarter from a Mary Tokodi-Ruth assist cut Williamstown’s 22-16 first quarter advantage in half, but Landis answered the trey just nine seconds later. Akhia Miller, who joined Tokodi-Ruth with six markers, followed with a putback. However, Pickens did the same as WHS moved ahead 27-21. A deuce by Miller was then followed by a Tokodi-Ruth 10-foot jumper, which made it 27-25 with 4:30 left in the half.

Williamstown then responded with a dozen straight as PCHS missed its final eight field goal attempts of the quarter. Pickens had eight points during the spurt. Addi Kerby added a basket and Landis’ lay-in closed the scoring for the 39-25 intermission cushion.

“We don’t get to enjoy this one very long. It’s a big LKC game Monday,” admitted WHS head coach Danny Bunch, whose team has St. Marys coming to town next. “That one and the one Wednesday with Ritchie. We are sitting in the driver’s seat (for the LKC Night of Champions), but that doesn’t mean much. We still have to take care of business against St. Marys, a real good team that seems like they are playing pretty well right now. Ritchie, the same thing. Our work is not finished.

“I think the biggest key was we didn’t turn it over in the first half. That’s been one of our Achilles heels all year. We have that one quarter where we have six or seven turnovers and it’s hard to do that and win against good teams. Tonight, we took care of the ball probably better than we have all year. That’s what you end up doing, beating a pretty good team by 18 points. You aren’t going to do that if you don’t take care of the ball.”

Inman found Cosner, who had five assists, for a 3 to start the third. Although Thorn and DeAngelo responded with consecutive hoops to keep the deficit at a baker’s dozen, Burt had a lay-in and then Inman a steal and a layup to push the advantage back to 17. Tokodi-Ruth converted to make it 46-31, but Burt had two more makes, Pickens one and Inman drained a long triple to forge ahead 55-31.

“We have a huge week coming up,” added coach Vierheller, who got eight boards from DeAngelo, seven by Miller and four dimes via Tokodi-Ruth while playing without the services of post Deborah Hardbarger. “After this long stretch we have a ton of games in a hurry. Each one of them is going to be tough and we have a lot of prep work to do. I feel good.

“I really do about the effort our girls gave for many reasons. Some are known and some are unknown. The girls fought all the way to the end and they did everything coach V asked them to do. Our girls, we believe in doing things the right way and I believe we did that tonight.”

WHS, which lost the turnover battle 6-3 but held a 44-28 edge on the glass, shot 45.8% (27 of 59) while limiting the Crusaderettes to 38.2% (21 of 55).

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com