MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Morgantown started to get under Southern’s skin late, but the battle-tested Rams finished strong to take down Class AAAA’s top-ranked team.
Southern used an 11-2 run in the third quarter to take a game-high 49-34 lead. Morgantown, a state runner-up last year like the Rams, trimmed that margin to 53-48 late.
The Mohigans couldn’t get over the hump, however, going 0 for 2 at the foul line with a chance to get within a bucket, and Jayden Weaver scored on the other end to cap a 55-48 road victory by the second-ranked Rams on Thursday night.
“That’s a great win, great win,” Southern head coach Landon Todd said. “Morgantown’s a good basketball team. It’s a testament to our defense and how well the girls play team defense. Morgantown averaged around 70 a game coming into tonight, so to hold them to 48, it’s an accomplishment in itself there.”
Southern (3-2) got back in the win column after dropping a pair of games in Northern Virginia to prep squad Mt. Zion and defending Virginia Class 6 champion Osbourn Park.
The experience proved beneficial against Morgantown (4-1), which tried a 2-2-1 full-court press to no avail, as the Rams attacked the middle to jump out to a 23-14 lead.
Morgantown hadn’t allowed more than 40 points to any of its first four opponents and held three of them to 31 points or less.
“We don’t get 23 points put on us in a quarter, that’s not us,” said Morgantown head coach John Fowkes. “Southern’s battle-tested. They’ve been out there playing national prep teams and we’ve been playing local teams that were supposed to be OK that haven’t turned out that way. And you saw that tonight, they were ready and they had a week to prepare for us.”
Morgantown — coming off a 20-4 season, one of those losses at the hands of Southern, 59-51 — had success with a full-court man-to-man defense following the Rams’ early burst.
Southern scored 32 points the rest of the way, but the Rams’ defense carried it over the finish line.
Southern led 34-25 at the half and 49-36 after three quarters, holding on despite scoring just six points in the final period.
Joycelyn Ward paced the Rams with 15 points and seven rebounds, Jayden Weaver added 14 points and four assists, Kelsey Ward tallied nine points and six boards, and Emelee Parks (West Virginia Wesleyan signee) finished with seven points, five steals and three assists.
Weaver scored four buckets in transition off Morgantown misses, taking advantage of the Mohigans’ aggressiveness on the offensive glass.
“We knew coming into the game Morgantown sold out for offensive rebounds,” Todd said. “They get nobody back. They have all five crash. So we knew if we could rebound on the defensive end, we could get easy looks on the other end.
“Our girls did a really good job boxing out, getting defensive rebounds and then they just took what they kind of gave us in transition.”
A 3-pointer by Maddie Ancell and a Sydney Deuesenberry bucket pulled the Mohigans within five points with 2:50 to play.
Southern tightened its defense, holding Morgantown scoreless the rest of the way.
“We tried to give it away there for a few possessions, but by now they’re an experienced bunch,” Todd said. “They know what it takes to win. They know what it takes to give away a game. And I thought the girls did a really good job of kind of keeping their heads, playing with some poise and just making sure we got good looks when we needed them and got stops on the other end.”
Deuesenberry and Ancell led Morgantown with 12 and 11 points, respectively, and Brenna Nelson added nine.
Morgantown was without the services of star guard Kayli Kellogg, who suffered an offseason injury. Kellogg, the daughter of West Virginia University women’s basketball head coach Mark Kellogg, played in the Rams’ victory over the Mohigans last season.
It doesn’t get easier for Southern, which went 24-3 last year and fell in the Class 1A championship game to Pikesville for a second straight season.
The Rams host unbeaten Clarke County, Virginia (6-0), on Tuesday at 7 p.m. The Eagles are coming off a 24-5 campaign.
Thursday was the first installment of a home-and-home between Southern and Morgantown.
The Mohigans will make the return trip to Oakland on Feb. 9.
“That’s going to be great for us to go there in February before, hopefully, we get a chance to play in the state tournament,” Fowkes. “That’s what you want in February.”