By TOM BONE
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
PRINCETON — The PikeView High School girls basketball team did the once-unthinkable on Thursday night, beating defending state champion Summers County 54-51 to claim the Class AA, Region 3, Section 2 championship and ending the Lady Bobcats’ streak of 26 consecutive sectional titles.
A patient PikeView (16-9) offense kept looking for good shots, and Summers County (18-6) was often ineffective on defense — and was unable to get the ball to fall through the hoop after falling behind at the end of the first quarter 14-13.
The Lady Panthers made 18 of 51 field goal attempts in the game (35.3 percent) and the Lady Bobcats were 21 for 55 (38.2 percent). PikeView was 16 or 27 in free throws and Summers County went 8 for 14.
Candace Brown, the top scorer in the nation among high school girls on maxpreps.com, had 30 points for Summers County but was 11 for 29 from the field. None of her teammates had more than seven points. Brown also had three steals.
PikeView point guard Hope Nester scored 18 points, going 8 for 13 at the foul line, and senior Jennifer Taylor had 14 points.
Nester had to leave the game twice after hitting the court hard, less than 24 hours after being knocked around in PikeView’s 37-36 semifinal win over James Monroe.
She said, “I definitely wore down a lot easier tonight. My knee, where I got hurt [Wednesday] night, it was giving me a little bit of trouble, but it was all worth it. I told my coaches that for my team, if I have to break every bone in my body, I will, because it’s worth it.”
PikeView senior Samantha Wood said, “This is definitely one of the biggest games of my life. Playing Summers County every year and getting beaten by so much against them, and then winning in the last game I’m ever going to play against them, means so much to me. That is, unless we see them at states.”
PikeView coach Karen Miller’s first comment in her postgame interview was, “To God be the glory, for the things He has done. That’s my statement, right there.”
On a more strategic level, she said, “As long as they stayed in their game, we’d be OK.”
Referring to PikeView’s win against James Monroe, Miller said, “I was kind of worried last night. It wasn’t a good effort, but we got the win. But people who came both nights saw the real team tonight. We’re proud of the girls. They believed in themselves, and they wanted it. And they got it.”
Lady Panthers senior Danielle Compton, who was named most valuable player of the sectional tournament, said, “After four years, we wanted to beat them. It feels so good to beat them.”
Summers County head coach Wayne Ryan said, “I didn’t think our effort was very sharp or very focused. I didn’t think we defended like we usually do. They spread us out and they were a little more determined.”
“We really don’t have anyone to blame but ourselves.”
When Brown’s shooting night was mentioned, Ryan said, “Well, there are always going to be nights shots don’t fall. There’s a human element there.”
“But there shouldn’t be a human element to your defensive effort and your willingness to work hard on defense, and to trap and rotate and that’s what we didn’t have tonight.”
Summers County junior Tyra Wynes said, “We have some defensive struggles, and when they got the lead, we couldn’t get our defense back in shape.”
Nester drove to the hoop to give PikeView a 28-19 lead with 2:09 left in the first half. Brown scored the final four points of the quarter and Summers County trailed 28-23.
Brown scored all 12 of the Bobcats’ third-quarter points, twice making good on three-point plays, and the gap closed to 39-35 at the end of three quarters.
To start the fourth quarter, PikeView turned in an 8 for 13 free throw performance, to go with two field goals, and led 51-44 with 1:55 left.
After the coaches talked to them during a timeout, the PikeView players formed a tight huddle, literally head-to-head, on their own before taking up their defensive formation.
Compton said that during the huddle, “We were telling each other to keep our heads up, to just keep playing strong, and to slow down and settle down. And we prayed. We prayed every time we got into the huddle.”
Summers County’s Brittany Bonds got two baskets underneath, both off of Brown’s assists, to trim the margin to 51-48 with 50 seconds left. After a foul shot by Nester, Brown buried a three-pointer from the right side with 5.5 seconds on the clock and PikeView led 52-51.
The Lady Bobcats called time out, and the PikeView cheering section began yelling, “We believe, PikeView, we believe!”
Nester was fouled with 3.3 seconds left and made both of the shots for the game’s final points. Brown’s mid-court heave at the buzzer was four feet short of the rim.
Taylor said, “We expected them to get a run, but our coaches told us we had to be ready for the run, and we were prepared for it. We stopped them. We pulled it out.”
“We just knew it could be done, if we played team ball — and we couldn’t do it without our coaches.”
Wynes said, “We dug ourselves a hole and we couldn’t get back out. We tried, but we couldn’t drop our shots. We didn’t get some of the calls we needed to get.”
Both teams advance to next week’s regional tournament. PikeView gets to host a game at their court in Gardner on Thursday at 7 p.m. against Wyoming East, which lost 82-31 to Westside in the section 1 finals. Summers County will travel to Westside.
The winners of those two games will play in the state tournament.
Miller said about Wyoming East, “We’ve beaten them twice. They’re a good team. We’ve just got to keep believing in ourselves, and play four good quarters. If we do that, I think we’ll be all right.”
Ryan said about playing Westside, “It’s a tough task, but if you’re going to win the state championship, you’ve got to beat Westside or Scott at some point. So we’ll play next Thursday and see what happens.”
Wynes said, “I guess we’ll just have to go to Westside and win. … We’re going to go out there and play hard.”
The all-tournament team consisted of PikeView’s Compton, Nester, Taylor and Lauren White; Summers County’s Brown, Wynes and Brandy Morrison; James Monroe’s Kelsie Mann and Jordan Page; Greenbrier West’s Autumn Lively and Micheala Osborne; Bluefield’s Khadijah Brown; Mount View’s Jordan Younger; and River View’s Tara Bowles.
— Contact Tom Bone
at tbone@bdtonline.com

At Princeton Senior High School
PIKEVIEW (16-9)
Laura Hill 2 0-0 4, Hope Nester 5 8-13 18, Samantha Wood 2 1-2 5, Danielle Compton 2 3-4 7, Jennifer Taylor 5 2-4 14, Lyndsay Hatfield 2 2-2 6, Lauren White 0 0-2 0. Totals 18 16-27 54.
SUMMERS COUNTY (18-6)
Hayley Shrewsbury 2 0-0 4, Tyra Wynes 2 0-1 4, Candace Brown 11 7-10 30, Brandy Morrison 3 1-2 7, Brittany Bonds 3 0-1 6. Totals 21 8-14 51.
PikeView………...….......14 14 11 15 — 54
Summers County…….....13 10 12 16 — 51
Three-point goals: PV 2 (Taylor 2); SC 1 (Brown 1). Total fouls: PV 17, SC 23. Fouled out: SC, Wynes, L. Bonds, Morrison. Technical fouls: none.