BELPRE-The Belpre High School girls basketball team was searching for its third straight victory when it took on visiting Wood County Christian Monday night in the Golden Eagles' gym.
Senior Allison Flowers made sure that happened after scoring 22 points-six fewer than the entire Wildcats team-to lead Belpre to a 59-28 victory.
Flowers tallied 10 of her game-high total during the first eight minutes of action and then finished with a flurry, scoring 11 of the Golden Eagles' 17 points in the final quarter as Belpre improved to 3-1 on the season with an important Tri-Valley Conference encounter with Federal Hocking on Thursday.
The 5-foot, 8-inch swing player took a pass from Emily Hughes and banged in the first of her three triples in the game with 7:33 showing on the clock in the first quarter. Wood County Christian, now 0-3 with a date against Greater Beckley Christian slated at 12:15 p.m. on Friday at the Hoops Classic at the Charleston Civic Center, pulled to within one, 3-2, on a short jumper by Serena Reynolds.
But that would be as close as the Wildcats would get as Belpre ran off 16 unanswered points to turn the game into a rout before the first quarter was six minutes old. Natalie Perry ignited the spurt when she scored off a Kelsey Lerch steal and Lerch ended the run when she hit a layup off a Flowers assist with 2:46 left in the period.
Wood County Christian finally broke the scoring drought on a Maddie Mason layin with 1:54 on the clock, but it was too little, too late for the Wildats. Mason tallied three more points in the second quarter as Wood County Christian outscored its host by one point, 11-10, to head into the locker rooms at the intermission trailing by 15, 30-15.
Belpre's bench took over in the third quarter as reserve Sierra Barker tallied five of the Golden Eagles' 12 points while the hosts made the most of their trips to the free throw line, hitting 7-of-12 opportunities to increase their lead to 22, 42-22, with eight minutes left to play.
Eight minutes that belonged to Flowers as she single-handily outscored the Wildcats, 11-8.
No other players scored in double figures for the Eagles as Hughes and Lerch finished with seven apiece while Barker added five. Wood County Christian was paced by Mason's 10 points, while Adria Herridge chipped in with seven points and nine rebounds.
