PARKERSBURG - After ''one of the best halves or two of basketball all season'' by Parkersburg High, the host Big Red girls managed only 16 points in the second half Thursday night versus No. 3-ranked South Charleston in falling to the Black Eagles 82-45 at Memorial Fieldhouse.
South Charleston improved to 16-3 while PHS, after just halting a six-game losing streak Tuesday at Nitro, dropped to 7-14.
The Black Eagles, who start an all-senior lineup, were paced in by Keke Allen, a force inside scoring and rebounding all game long, with 30 points, followed by Alexis Tunstalle with 14, Brittany Gordon with 12 and Sierra Moore with nine.
On the night, the Big Reds, who host an MSAC Placement game at 7:30 p.m. next Thursday probably versus either Cabell Midland or Hurricane, were led by Precious Ramsey and Imani Ward with 16 and 11 points, respectively.
But after basically outplaying South Charleston in all facets of the game in the first half and trailing 32-29 at intermission only because Lina Villanueva hit a trey for a four-point play with two seconds left, everything just went completely off track for PHS in the second half as the Black Eagles rolled up 50 points to run away with the win.
And Big Red head coach Kenny DeMoss didn't have an answer for his team's second-half malfunction. ''I don't know,'' he said about his team's meager point-production in the second half. ''South Charleston, though, wasn't really the problem - to take nothing away from them because they're a really good team, but we were doing things in the second half that we didn't do in the first - particularly throwing the ball away and not playing great halfcourt defense - and it really hurt us.''
Fact Box
South Charleston 82,
Parkersburg High 45
S. Charleston 12 20 22 28 - 82
PHS 16 13 10 6 - 45
No. 3 SOUTH CHARLESTON (16-3)
Laci Jarrell 0 0-0 0, Aliyan Webb 0 1-2 1, Alexia Tunstalle 6 2-2 14, Lina Villanueva 2 1-1 6, Alexia Wade 0 0-0 0, Sierra Moore 4 0-2 9, Kingsley Brown 0 0-0 0, Keke Allen 10 10-13 30, Brittany Gordon 3 6-9 12, Pam Young 0 0-0 0, Kirstie Trabert 1 0-0 2, Meredith Caine 0 0-0 0, Gel Villanueva 3 0-0 6, Aryaunna Mosley 1 0-0 2, TOTALS: 30 20-29 82. 3-point goals: L. Villanueva 1, Moore 1
PHS (7-14)
Kailey Cox 0 0-0 0, Dakota Hefner 2 0-0 4, Jessie McLain 0 0-0 0, Trisha McGrotty 0 0-0 0, Imani Ward 5 1-4 11, Savannah Smith 1 2-3 4, Hannah Mueller 2 0-0 5, Paige Warner 0 0-0 0, Precious Ramsey 8 0-1 16, Megan Morrison 2 0-0 5, Megan Carroll 0 0-0 0, Hannah Hill 0 0-0 0, TOTALS: 20 3-8 45. 3-point goals: Mueller 1, Morrison 1
JV game: PHS 55, South Charleston 38
Next game: Either Cabell Midland or Hurricane at PHS 7:30 p.m. Thursday in MSAC Placement game
Against a team the caliber of South Charleston, PHS played lights-out in the first half, led by Ramsey and Ward
''We played with great poise, we handled the ball against their pressure really well, we were scoring inside - I really couldn't ask for anything more,'' said DeMoss. ''I wasn't happy that we lost, but in a sense, it gave our kids a boost of confidence that we were able to play right with a very good team on a high level.''
Megan Morrison's trey with 1:51 left in the first quarter lifted the Big Reds into a 15-12 lead and then a triple by Hannah Mueller to start the second stanza pushed PHS ahead 19-12,
But the Black Eagles rallied to make it an even game until Villanueva's clutch three-point bomb and free throw for the three-point edge at halftime.
PHS got the deficit down to one early in the third period before SC exploded to tally 20 of the last 26 points in the quarter to burst out to a 54-39 advantage going to the final eight minutes of play, in which the gap reached as much as 39 late at 80-41 and 82-43.
