Treadway's 29 leads Cavaliers to Charleston (With Gallery)

Mar. 2—charmco — An inspired second-half effort before a raucous home crowd will allow the Greenbrier West girls basketball team to experience rarefied air they haven't for a good, long while.

In a Class A Region 3 co-final Thursday against River View, the Cavaliers fought back from a slight first-half deficit and a hole of 32-26 midway through the third period by employing an effective full-court press and riding the play of sophomore Preslee Treadway (29 points for the game) down the stretch to escape with a 61-52 victory and punch a girls state tournament ticket for the first time since 1987.

The Cavaliers are seeded fourth in the Class A portion of the 2023 WVSSAC Girls High School State Basketball Tournament and will face off with Region 3 foe and No. 5 seed, Webster County, at 11:15 a.m. next Tuesday.

"This means absolutely the world to me," said Greenbrier West senior Meagan Poticher. "We've had this program build a lot over the four years I've been here and it's just great to go out with a bang.

"I mean, usually we'd be done by now. It's just awesome to still be playing basketball."

Her head coach, Mark Agee, said, "I'm speechless really, I really am. These girls deserve everything they got tonight. They've worked hard all season and the five years I've been here, we've worked hard for them.

"They played as a team. They have the best chemistry. ... We were up. We've been down. We've come back up. It's just an awesome thing."

"They worked together as a team," Agee continued. "When one sits, the other ones pick it up, the right person. You know, Preslee came back in there in that fourth quarter and she was a game-changer. It was a team effort, they played as a team and won as a team."

Down 32-26 after a goal from River View's Katie Bailey, the Cavaliers went on a 6-0 spurt as the third period wound down, turning Raider turnovers into points at the other end, to knot the game at 32-all with 2:50 remaining. West's Abigail Thomas scored consecutive deuces off assists from Ava Barclay and Poticher, then Barclay netted another deuce off the Greenbrier West press. The quarter ended with the Cavaliers up 36-34, setting the stage for a West onslaught in the fourth.

With Treadway on the bench with four fouls, the hosts retained their composure, and the Raiders tied the contest at 40-40 on an Abigail Pruitt bucket on a nice wrap-around assist from Bailey. That's when Treadway, who had been re-inserted into the game, took over. She ventured into the middle of the lane for a conventional three-point play that pushed the Cavaliers back in front, 43-40, with 4:58 to play. She then went strong inside for two on the next trip down the floor and added two foul shots after that, and West had a 47-40 cushion with 3:36 left.

River View later trimmed the deficit to four points, 51-47, on a Haylie Payne deuce with 2:32 remaining, and the Raiders trailed by four once again, 55-51, on a Trista Lester two-pointer with about a minute left. From there, Greenbrier West's Barclay calmly sank five of six free throws as the Raiders were forced to foul, and Treadway made 1-of-2 freebies with 19.6 ticks to close her stellar fourth quarter with 14 points and send the Cavaliers dancing.

"I think fourth quarter is when our team really starts realizing, 'Hey we gotta pick it up,' and I think in that fourth quarter, we were all fired up and we were ready to play," Treadway said. "We all went together as a team and went into battle."

"With four fouls, I usually get kind of timid and scared and back off, but today, I knew it was a big game and I knew we had to go in there and fight as hard as we could," she explained. "In the huddle, we were getting fired up and we just kept saying 'Don't give up, don't give up,' and we didn't give up."

She said she wasn't concerned while riding the pine for a stretch in the second half. "Oh, I know my team can do it, so if I'm on the bench, I'm just as fired up as I am out on the court. Yeah, we were all fired up after halftime, we were all fired up. We wanted this game to be ours so we went out there and fought for it."

"I think that going into the press and then scoring when it mattered (was big)," Poticher said. "We shot a lot of 3s in the beginning and they weren't falling, but in the end we started throwing them inside and we started getting those inside fouls and then making our foul shots and I think that was an important thing."

"I'm nervous, but I think if we get matched up well, then we have a good team so then we should be able to compete," Poticher said of the state tournament.

River View coach Gehrig Justice lamented his team getting into foul trouble which hindered its progress, including some situations he felt fouls shouldn't have been whistled.

He praised the play of Treadway, too.

"We didn't lose; she won. "Twenty-two (Treadway's uniform number) won the game."

The first quarter was a see-saw affair. Treadway scored on a putback to pull her team to within 12-11 late in the quarter, then River View's Pruitt hit a deuce with a second left to allow the Raiders to carry a 14-11 lead into the second frame.

River View led 22-14 at one point in the second and owned a 27-22 halftime lead.

Lester finished with 22 points and Pruitt had 13 for River View (12-9).

Barclay tossed in 10 for the Cavaliers (18-5).

"Defensively, man, I thought we just did great tonight, especially that there at the end of the third and the fourth period," Agee said. "They kicked it up, pressed the ball and were getting turnovers and that's what we needed to do."

He also said crowd support was a key. "Ah, these girls play 10 times more when that crowd is up for them, cheering for them and yelling for them. They love it and, honestly, it gets me that much more fully involved. It's a blessing. We had a good time. We're going to the states next week and we're excited about it all."

The Class A portion of the tournament will unfold on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of next week.

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River View

Trista Lester 22, Kaylee Blankenship 5, Haylie Payne 4, Katie Bailey 8, Abigail Pruitt 13

Greenbrier West

Meagan Poticher 4, Ava Barclay 10, Maddie Fields 7, Preslee Treadway 29, Abigail Thomas 6, Brilee Redden 5

RV: 14 13 7 18 — 52

GW: 11 11 14 25 — 61

Three-point goals — RV: 1 (Lester); GW 2 (Barclay, Fields). Fouled out: Bailey (RV)

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