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John Marshall gets past Brooke

LINE UP THE SHOT — Brooke’s Aleigha Edgar prepares to take a shot against John Marshall. (Kyle Lutz)

MOUNDSVILLE — John Marshall coach Brock Melko said it perfectly following his Monarchs’ 62-49 victory against visiting Brooke in the Class AAA Region 1, Section 1 Sectional semifinal Wednesday.

“All I said to the team afterward was that in tournament time in basketball, the only words that matter are survive and advance,” Melko said. “It doesn’t matter how you play or how much you win by, you just have to get the win.”

John Marshall (14-9) got the win it was looking for as Shay Straughn and Avery Derrow combined for 55 of the Monarchs’ 62 points, with Straughn tallying 31 and Derrow supplying 24.

“They played well,” Melko said of the two scoring machines. “They are good. When they get the ball good things usually happen and I think Kaylee McMullen does a great job of getting it to them.”

Hope Bowman paced Brooke (10-13) with a double-double that included 18 points and 18 rebounds, while Ashley Arca turned in 15 points and four boards.

“Bowman is really good,” Melko said. “The biggest area that she hurt us in was rebounding. Even when we boxed her out, she is tall enough to just grab it over top of us. She is young so she is going to be good in the future.”

Both teams exchanged buckets early but Bowman was called for two early fouls and, with her out momentarily, the Monarchs took advantage and reeled off six straight points to end the first quarter and five consecutive points to begin the second to take a 21-10 advantage. Derrow provided six and Straughn added five during the 11-point run.

Following an 11-point first quarter from Derrow, Straughn delivered eight of her 31 in the second stanza.

Brooke trailed 31-20 when senior Gabby Velegol drained a 3-pointer with just six seconds remaining in the first half, which cut the deficit to 31-23 and gave the Bruins hope, until McMullen raced down the floor past Brooke defenders and provided a buzzer-beating layup as the clock hit zero to give the Monarchs a 33-23 edge at the break.

Brooke opened the second half on a 7-2 run with Bowman collecting a pair of scores the cut the margin to 35-30 but John Marshall answered with a 7-0 run of its own to take a commanding 42-30 advantage and did not look back.

Brooke suffered 22 turnovers and John Marshall surrendered 16 turnovers.

“You can’t give a team like John Marshall easy buckets,” Brooke coach Ryan Scherich said. “They probably had 16-20 points on runouts and our mental lapses on defense.”

Brooke’s Aleigha Edgar delivered six points and seniors Velegol and Madison Reynolds scored eight and two points, respectively.

“We are losing two great senior leaders in Reynolds and Velegol,” Scherich said. “We are a young team and we made some young mistakes but we are moving in the right direction.”

With the win, John Marshall will face off with host Wheeling Park at 7 p.m. Friday.

“We had a good energy (Wednesday),” Melko said. “Since last Friday, we have just focused on this one. We have now guaranteed ourselves a trip to the regional.

“Wheeling Park is playing as well as anyone in the state and if we can get a win we should have all the confidence in the world going forward.”

John Marshall has reached the regional final every year with Melko at the helm.

John Marshall 62, Brooke 49

Brooke 10 13 11 15 — 49

John Marshall 16 17 13 16 — 62

BROOKE: K. Byers 0 0-0 0; Dodson 0 0-2 0; Elliott 0 0-1 0; A. Arca 6 3-4 15; Edgar 2 0-0 6; J. Arca 0 0-0 0; Velegol 3 0-0 8; Reynolds 1 0-0 2; Fox 0 0-1 0; Bowman 9 0-0 18; C. Byers 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 21 3-8 49. 3-pointers: Edgar 2, Velegol 2.

JOHN MARSHALL: Henderson 1 1-4 3; Derrow 8 8-11 24; Straughn 9 10-17 31; Harr 0 0-0 0; Groves 1 0-0 2; An. Blake 0 0-0 0; Ab. Blake 0 0-0 0; McMullen 1 0-0 2; Strait 0 0-0 0; Stewart 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 20 19-32 62. 3-pointers: Straughn 3.

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