WEST LIBERTY – West Liberty-Salem kept its superlative season rolling on Thursday with a Senior Night victory over visiting Mechanicsburg, 83-49, in OHC girls basketball.
The win clinched the league title for West Liberty-Salem, and it was a tale of two halves and two seniors for the hosts.
The Tigers came out on fire from beyond the arc, fueled by senior Lily Yoder’s 13 points in the first quarter. She had 19 at the half and finished with 22 for the game, despite not playing the final four minutes.
“For the most part, most nights, we shoot the ball pretty well,” WL-S Coach Dennis McIntosh said. “It makes it hard for teams defensively. We’ve had a couple of teams try to run a box-and-one on Lily, and we’ve had other people step up.”
WL-S (20-1, 12-0) went on a 16-3 tear before Mechanicsburg (11-8 overall) called timeout to stop the bleeding. The Tigers were on pace for more than 100 points with a 29-13 lead when the frame ended.
It didn’t get better for M’burg in the second quarter, with the home team taking a 52-25 lead to the locker room.
“We left them all wide open. If you stand out there uncontested, it’s not hard to make them,” MHS Coach Christie Dodane said. “But they’re great shooters, and they shot well.”
The second half saw another flurry of points, with the Tigers’ other senior, Mikalia McIntosh, doing most of the damage. She finished with 22 points, 14 of which came after halftime. She also did not play the final four minutes.
“They’ve meant a lot to our program. They’ve both put a lot of time into it,” Coach McIntosh said of his two seniors. “They’ve both been good shooters for us over their careers. For them to go out like they did in their last home game, that was pretty special.”
There were bright spots for Mechanicsburg, but they were mostly contained to the occasional burst by Mikayla Dodane and a strong basket here and there down low by Morgan Hamby and company.
Hamby finished with 18 points. Dodane finished with 13 points, but fouled out with 4:30 left in the game.
“We’ll just have to watch the film and make adjustments, because we’ve got them on Monday,” Coach Dodane said. “We’ve got to give them less opportunities to have uncontested shots.”
In the jayvee game, West Liberty-Salem won, 41-17. Hallie Strapp had 8 points for the Tigers and Emma Jones had 9 points for the Indians.
WL-S plays at Mechanicsburg on Monday while M’burg hosts Triad on Saturday.
