By GARY DOVE
for the Daily Telegraph
LINDSIDE — The old “Tale of two halves,” where one team plays well in the opening two quarters and the other plays well in the final two and most often wins the basketball or football game is as old as the games themselves.
Saturday afternoon in the opening round of the Class AA Region III Section 2 girls’ basketball tournament, the No. 4-seed Lady Mavericks won a very non-traditional “Tale of two halves” contest, playing extremely well in the first and fourth quarters, while the No. 5 Knights played very well in the two middle periods.
Just a quick look at the numbers verifies the description, as James Monroe outscored the Lady View 31-10 in the first and last chapters, while the Lady Knights outdueled the Lady Mavs 24-15 in the middle two frames.
James Monroe came away with a 46-34 win and will advance to the semifinals on Tuesday at Princeton Senior High School to take on top-seed Bluefield at 6 p.m. in a doubleheader opener.
Lady Mav freshman Taylor Sams cashed in a trey following a Lady Knight turnover to stake her team to an early 3-0 lead, 1:08 into the contest. Mount View junior Kaitlyn Gillespie finally got her club on the scoreboard, making one-of-two foul shots with 4:25 showing in the opening frame.
That point would be the only Lady Golden Knight score of the opening eight minutes, as the McDowell Countians exhibited a lack of any kind of energy during that span.
James Monroe, meanwhile, heated up, scoring the final ten points of the quarter for a 13-1 advantage.
Freshman point guard Chyln Fox bombed a trey to open the second quarter, extending the lead to 16-1 before the “Tale of two halves” kicked in.
Mount View (2-12) outscored the Mavs 11-3 the remainder of the half, limiting James Monroe to three foul shot scores, and cutting the deficit to 19-12 at the break.
Gillespie, who took game scoring honors with 21 points, scored eight in the second, including a pair of threes.
In retrospect, after the game, Mavericks head coach Mike Hines suspected his attempt, with the lead, to pull Mount View out of its zone, may have given the Lady Knights a jump-start to begin moving and actually slowed his team down.
“Coach (Kelly) Mann and I talked about it at halftime. When we brought them (MV) out (of the zone), we took the pressure off them.”
Seven points by Gillespie and six by senior Chantel Vineyard helped Mount View outscore the Mavs 13-9 in the third, cutting the deficit that had once been 15, down to three (25-28) at the period’s end.
Mount View put Vineyard on the high post at the foul line and started its offense with an entry pass to her. She scored three goals, but when she or a teammate would miss, the Lady Knights crashed the boards, scoring three times off offensive rebounds in the third.
After freshman Gracie Mann opened the fourth with a driving goal, followed by a trey from the front, the James Monroe lead went back to eight before the Lady View made one final push, with Gillespie hitting a three-ball and Vineyard canning a jumper from the foul stripe to again close to within 3, at 33-30.
Sams, who had not scored since her game-opener, buried two treys and a freebie down the stretch, while freshman Morgan Wylie, who had not scored to that point, hit a pair of jumpers, as Monroe outscored its guests 13-4 the remainder of the way for the win.
Analyzed Coach Hines, “You can’t play one quarter. You’ve got to play four quarters…We got the win and we move on and this time of the season, that’s what counts.”
The Lady Mavericks, who started four freshmen and a senior, will take a 6-15 record into Tuesday’s contest against Bluefield.
Mann paced James Monroe with 11 points, while Sams contributed 10.
Assessed first year Lady Knight assistant coach Derek Brooks, “We came out soft. We were ready in the locker room, but we came out and played like we were scared.”
“We played better in the second quarter and we told the girls at halftime, ‘You did better and if you play the rest of the game like you did in the second quarter, you’ll be fine.’
And we did in the third and the first part of the fourth, but then we went back to playing without any energy,” Brooks continued.
In the second game of Tuesday’s doubleheader at Princeton, third-seeded River View will face No. 2 PikeView.

at Lindside
MOUNT VIEW (2-12)
Kaitlyn Gillespie 8 1-3 21, Chantel Vineyard 4 0-0 8, Paige Short 0 0-2 0, Jasmine Lash 0 2-2 2, Destiny Robertson 1 1-2 3. Totals 13 4-9 34.
JAMES MONROE (6-15)
Chyln Fox 3 0-2 7, Gracie Mann 3 4-6 11, Taylor Sams 3 1-2 10, Holly Huffman 2 3-7 7, Morgan Wylie 2 0-0 4, Kelly Ellison 3 1-3 7. Totals 16 9-20 46.
Mount View........................1 11 13 9 — 34
James Monroe..................13 6 9 18 — 46
3-point goals: MV 4 (Gillespie 4); JM 5 (Sams 3, Fox 1, Mann 1).