Lady Warrior Roundballers Start Post-season Play

Dunmore, WV – The Potomac Valley Conference champions Pocahontas County Lady Warriors finished their regular season with a remarkable 18-4 record and begin post-season play Monday night. The Warriors play a first round sectional playoff game at home against the Valley-Fayette Greyhounds at 7 p.m. Valley-Fayette High School is located the small town of Smithers, in the Kanawha Valley.
Out of 51 Class schools in the state, all but 16 teams will be eliminated in sectional play. The 16 survivors will advance to regional playoffs and eight winners will play in the state tournament in Charleston, on March 7-10.
Valley-Fayette finished their regular season with a record of 6-13, but their schedule included extremely tough opponents, including Summers County and Charleston Catholic.
Warriors coach Tim McClung says he’s not underestimating the Greyhounds because of their record.
“There down in the Kanawha Valley, being right there in Montgomery, so they play some triple-A schools and they play some of the single-A schools also,” he said. “They’ve played some good competitors. I don’t think their record is probably indicative. They are a better team than their record is showing.”
The coach says Valley-Fayette has good talent, including all-state honorable mention Alexis Payne, who scored more than 30 points in multiple games.
“They have one of the better players in the state – a young lady by the name of Alexis Payne,” he said. “She’s a senior. She’s probably about 6′-1″, very athletic – can do a lot of things with the basketball. That will be, probably, one of the primary concerns that we have is stopping her.”
McClung says his strategy is to wear the other team down.
“We’re going to try to do two things,” he said. “We’re going to pressure you on the defensive end and we’re going to try and run the ball up and down the floor on the offensive end. Hopefully, our defense will turn into some easy transition baskets for us. That’s basically what we try to do, is pressure them and wear them down.”
All-state, first-team, senior Chloe Bland leads the Lady Warriors on offense and defense, averaging 20 points and 2.5 steals per game. Senior all-state honorable mention Miranda McNabb is averaging 13 points per game. Boosting the Warrior defense, senior Erin White and junior Olivia Workman combined for 114 steals during the regular season. White excels at moving the ball inside and leads the team with 105 assists.
AMR will broadcast Monday night’s game on WNMP and WVMR FM, beginning with a pre-game show at 6:45. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.