WVU’s JJ Quinnerly drives to the basket Friday afternoon against Arizona. The Mountaineers lost.

MORGANTOWN — And then there have been none …

West Virginia’s women’s basketball group was eliminated from the NCAA Championships in the initial round Thursday in College Park, Md., just as the men’s group was a day earlier in Birmingham, Ala.

The ladies, carrying a No. ten seed, ran into an Arizona group, seeded 7th, that just had a tiny bit as well substantially in all locations and place collectively a powerful second-half to claim a 75-62 victory that possibly defined the variations amongst the two teams.

“I believed our young ladies battled,” Coach Dawn Plitzuweit stated. “We began down in the initial quarter, type of dug ourselves a hole. I believed our resilience and our toughness type of showed by way of. I believed we continued to function, to attack.”

The Mountaineers got scuffed about in the initial quarter, providing up 28 points, which was a season-higher for the 24th ranked Wildcats, falling behind 28-17.

“They actually pushed the ball in transition. We had a tough time acquiring back and stopping the ball. We fouled a lot in the initial quarter,” senior guard Madisen Smith, possessing played her final game at WVU immediately after a profession that place her amongst the finest to play at the college.

Recovering its composure in the second quarter, the Mountaineers narrowed the halftime deficit to 40-35 and turned the game in their favor and produced a powerful run at Arizona to narrow the distinction to 50-47.

The Wildcats, having said that, did not panic, even even though they have been with out their finest player, Shaina Pellington, and merely started pounding the ball inside exactly where Cate Reese could compile a game-major 25 points and exactly where WVU’s former teammate, Esmery Martinez, would carve a double-double out of 13 points and a dozen rebounds.

“It was cool to play against her. Superior to see her once more. She’s a terrific player,” Smith stated.

“For me, it wasn’t as well weird. I only played with her for a year. I imply, I’m cool with her. We was laughing and joking on the court,” WVU’s JJ Quinerly, who completed the higher scorer with 19 points. “Just one more player, just one more game..

Quinerly, it turned out, was the only offense WVU had immediately after they drew to inside 3 points. She scored 12 of her 19 points in the second half. At a single point she scored 11 of the 13 points could muster at that time.

Arizona’s ball handling, it had 19 assists on 30 baskets, and its rebounding, hauling down 49 rebounds to just 35 for the Mountaineers, permitted the Wildcats to handle every little thing about the game.

WVU’s inability to do something on its offensive glass was crushing as it had only three second-likelihood points.

Quinerly would not pin that on a size distinction, even though.

“I do not consider it was their size,” she stated, “I cannot actually say it hurt us. Far more that we could have just did far better. We could have did far better just maintaining them off the boards, every little thing, so…”

So, it ended badly. WVU completed with a 19-12 record, possibly reaching much more that was anticipated in a transition year.

“I told our players in the locker area I do not consider quite a few men and women, when this entire issue began much less than a year ago, would have stated that our young ladies would have had a likelihood to be battling and have a likelihood to do the items that we’ve accomplished this year,” Plitzuweit stated.

Prior to the game, Plitzuweit says she shared a story with her group that went along with this season.

“I’m not a really great golfer, ideal? When golf balls have been invented, they have been smooth. There weren’t dents or dimples in them. As quickly as they’d get hit by a golf club, they realized the much more density they had in the golf ball, the farther it would go,” she started.

“That was type of like us throughout the course of our time developing, there was a lot of adversity, a lot of understanding.

“When there’s a transition, it is difficult,” she continued. “Our young ladies had to study a new program, a new style, all these form of items. We weren’t as thriving as we wanted to be early on.

We continued to battle, develop, place some dents in the golf ball, if you will. It kept going additional. When we completed, I believed our young ladies actually battled and continued to get far better as the season wore on.”

That is just her way of hunting toward subsequent year, as if standing on the tee and shouting “Fore!”

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