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 initially round Thursday in College Park, Md., just as the men’s group was a day earlier in Birmingham, Ala.

The females, carrying a No. ten seed, ran into an Arizona group, seeded 7th, that just had a small bit also substantially in all regions and place with each other a powerful second-half to claim a 75-62 victory that likely defined the variations among the two teams.

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

The Mountaineers got scuffed about in the initially 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 really hard time receiving back and stopping the ball. We fouled a lot in the initially quarter,” senior guard Madisen Smith, possessing played her final game at WVU right after a profession that place her amongst the ideal 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, even so, did not panic, even although they have been with out their ideal player, Shaina Pellington, and basically 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. Fantastic to see her once more. She’s a terrific player,” Smith mentioned.

“For me, it wasn’t also 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 a different player, just a different game..

Quinerly, it turned out, was the only offense WVU had right after they drew to inside 3 points. She scored 12 of her 19 points in the second half. At one particular 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 all the things 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, although.

“I do not feel it was their size,” she mentioned, “I cannot actually say it hurt us. A lot more that we could have just did superior. We could have did superior just maintaining them off the boards, all the things, so…”

So, it ended badly. WVU completed with a 19-12 record, likely attaining additional that was anticipated in a transition year.

“I told our players in the locker area I do not feel a lot of people today, when this entire issue began significantly less than a year ago, would have mentioned that our young ladies would have had a likelihood to be battling and have a likelihood to do the items that we’ve completed this year,” Plitzuweit mentioned.

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

“I’m not a incredibly fantastic golfer, suitable? 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 additional density they had in the golf ball, the farther it would go,” she started.

“That was type of like us in the course of the course of our time increasing, there was a lot of adversity, a lot of finding out.

“When there’s a transition, it is difficult,” she continued. “Our young ladies had to discover a new method, a new style, all these kind of items. We weren’t as effective 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 superior as the season wore on.”

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

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