By TOM BONE
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD, Va. — The Bluefield girls basketball team took the lead against the Graham G-Girls halfway through the first quarter, 4-2, on Saturday evening, and did not stop until they had finished off their rivals 67-48 on the Graham Middle School floor.
Jia Coppola and Emaleigh Gallinger, who were G-Girls last season, along with Essence Brown, provided big plays for the Beavers (7-3), who have won four straight games and are now ranked ninth in Class AA.
Coppola had seven field goals and seven free throws for 21 points to go with five rebounds. Brown had 11 points, 13 rebounds and eight steals. Gallinger added eight points and four steals.
Lexi Kiser again paced the G-Girls (5-7) with 22 points, going 12 or 15 at the foul line. Dejah Carter had 19 points and 13 rebounds, though she missed part of the game with foul trouble.
Carter scored the last points of the first half on a putback to cut Bluefield’s lead to 26-21. She opened the third quarter with a basket from the baseline, and the deficit was cut to three points.
Graham head coach Chris Southcott said, “ I thought we were playing as well as we have been playing, so down five was a good thing in our eyes, but it’s one of those things, until we learn what is successful and what is not successful for us and not to repeat those things that are not successful for us, we are not going to win games like that.”
Gallinger then hit a triple from the left side to begin a 14-3 surge by Bluefield from which Graham could not recover.
Bluefield head coach Tony Mallamaci has emphasized defensive presses and a fast-tempo attack against all opponents.
“That’s been what we’ve been trying to do all year is to play a fast-paced, up-tempo game. That’s the kind of kids we’ve got this year, so we’ve been trying to press, every chance we get.”
Coppola said, “I came in here knowing I was going to face (some fouls). I reach a lot. So I just overlooked it, and told my team we’ve got to play against it. And we got a win.”
She said about the Beavers’ overall defensive press and scoring distribution, “Basketball is not an ‘I’ sport, it’s a team sport. That’s the way we look at it.”
Bluefield had defeated Graham 75-51 on Dec. 18 behind 22 points by Brown. Kiser scored 31 for the G-Girls. Coppola had seven points and Gallinger had five.
Graham was on a three-game winning streak entering Saturday’s play.
Mallamaci said Graham is “a scrappy bunch, a hard-playing bunch, and they’re much improved from the last time we played them. (Coach Southcott) does a good job with them. The Kiser girl’s phenomenal, the Carter girl’s phenomenal, and they’ve got some good players to go around (them).”
Southcott said, “I do think they (the Beavers) are an athletic team. I don’t want to take anything away from them, but I do think a lot of the mistakes we made were our mistakes.”
“We have been playing well. Some of the mistakes we were making were just not catching passes. It was not things we have been doing in the last week and half, it’s not something they ran at us, it was just not catching the ball. That is all there is to it.”
The G-Girls will host Tazewell on Monday and travel to Richlands on Wednesday.
Southcott said, “We were on a little three-game win streak and two of the games we played were pretty good games. We were feeling pretty good. We will take the next 36 hours off and come back out on Monday night and see what we have got.”
The Beavers travel to sectional foe James Monroe on Wednesday and visit Westside on Friday.
— Contact Tom Bone at
tbone@bdtonline.com;
Twitter @BDTBone

At Graham Middle School
BLUEFIELD (7-3)
Emaleigh Gallinger 3 0-3 8, Jia Coppola 7 7-10 21, Essence Brown 5 1-1 11, Jessica Hayden 3 0-0 7, Alyssa Lester 4 0-0 8, Abby Atwell 1 0-0 2, Dani Janutolo 4 0-2 8, Teryn Auville 1 0-1 2. Totals 29 8-17 67.
GRAHAM (5-7)
Lexi Kiser 5 12-15 22, Miranda Hagerman 0 1-2 1, Casey Spencer 1 4-4 6, Dejah Carter 8 3-7 19. Totals 14 20-28 48.
Bluefield.....................9 17 23 18 — 67
Graham.......................4 17 13 14 — 48
3-point goals — Bluefield 3 (Gallinger 2, Hayden 1); Graham, none. Total fouls — Bluefield 24, Graham 14. Fouled out — Brown, Atwell.