By BRIAN WOODSON
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD — Tracy Raban was looking for her G-Girls to shut the door. The Beavers nearly kicked it down.
Liz Workman scored 10 points and Tori Repass and Ashley Moretto added eight apiece, as Graham won its season opener 44-37 over cold-shooting Bluefield on Thursday night at Bluefield Middle School.
Bluefield (0-3), which shot just 3-of-32 (9.4 percent) in the opening half and 14-57 (24.6 percent) for the game, trailed 23-10 at the break. The Beavers missed their first 17 shot attempts in the game.
“I was proud of how hard they played, but it is shooting, shooting, shooting, we are light years behind teams fundamentally in shooting,” Mallamaci said. “These kids are just way behind.
“We went back yesterday to middle school practices to get the fundamentals down because no matter what offense you run if you can’t pass, catch, dribble and shoot you are not going to be effective.”
Graham struggled with turnovers — 19 in all, 10 in the first half and seven in the opening four minutes — and also made just 9-of-26 from the free throw line.
“It is a victory, but I hope we are not satisfied,” Graham head coach Tracy Raban said. “It is the first game of the year, we have got a lot of work to do, and there is no time to hit the gym and practice for it because we turn around and play again tomorrow.
“It is a victory, but we are not satisfied with it.”
While Shelia Hopkins scored 17 of her game-high 18 points in the second half, those early shooting woes may have the cost the Beavers. Tyra Jackson added nine points for Bluefield and Dazia Edwards tallied six.
The Beavers also struggled at the charity stripe, making 9-of-23.
“The kids have been working hard and I am very proud of their effort,” Mallamaci said. “It is not their fault they are fundamentally behind, but we are going to get it fixed and I think by midseason that we should have a pretty good team.”
Graham (1-0), which also received six points each from Karly Morgan and Erin Wilson, won for the third straight time against the Beavers.
“Props to Bluefield, they never give up,” Raban said. “I told the girls at halftime, you might be sitting there with a 13-point lead, but it is like this every year. Are we going to be able to slam the door or are we going to leave it cracked open and let them keep fighting their way back in and that is what we did.”
Repass, who started the scoring with the only successful 3-point shot in the game, helped the G-Girls build a 10-4 lead after one quarter, and the margin grew to double digits as the Beavers continued to miss shots.
Moretto, playing her first varsity game, played well for the G-Girls.
“I knew it was there, it has been a work in progress, I knew what (Moretto) was capable of doing,” Raban said. “It was just a matter of her coming out and doing it and I think that is someone we can look to in the future.”
Raban was pleased with how the G-Girls were able to control Hopkins to just a single point in the opening half, but that ended after the break.
“We controlled her the first half and the second half,” Raban said, “the defensive side of the floor I was really disappointed in.”
Hopkins had 12 third quarter points, as the Beavers made their first three shots after the break, eventually cutting the lead to 31-28 on a basket by Hopkins with 56 seconds on the clock.
“We try to get her to work down low, once she gets the ball down low inside the paint area she is hard to stop,” Mallamaci said. “She handles the ball well, she is powerful, she has got good post moves. If we can get her the ball, she seems to either get fouled and get a basket.”
Graham answered with a basket by Ashley Matthews off a Moretto assist, and followed a Bluefield turnover with a halfcourt drive to the basket by Workman for the 35-28 lead going into the final period.
“We went away from a game plan in the second half, they outscored us 27-21 in the second half,” Raban said. “We didn’t play defense.
“We got into their style of ball, throwing the ball up and down the court and throwing it away. They got their style of play going and we allowed it.”
Bluefield cut the gap to 35-31 on a bucket by Jackson with 6:18 to go, but Moretto scored again, and the Beavers could never get closer than six points.
“We just didn’t outplay them, we just didn’t shoot well,” said Mallamaci, who wasn’t pleased with the number of missed 3s taken by his team. “I think we had enough shots that we could have won. I bet we didn’t shoot 15 percent from the field and if we shoot 20 percent I think we win the game, but we didn’t.
“We will get back in here tomorrow and get the old fundamentals out and the shooting out and try to get better.”
Graham will travel to Richlands tonight to meet their former Southwest District rivals. Raban remembers a visit there last season when the G-Girls returned to Bluefield with a 58-30 loss.
“We went down there last year and got flat-out embarrassed,” Raban said. “They’ve got some good players back in (Brittany) Allen and Jordyn Cole and (Cassidy) Richardson and they are not going to forget what they did to us last year.
“I just hope our girls don’t forget it and we go back and give a better effort than we did the second half here.”
Bluefield, which will host Montcalm on Tuesday, has now played Class AAA Greenbrier East, five-time defending Class AA state champion Summers County and the G-Girls, who were one win from the state tourney last year for a third straight time.
“Tracy always has a good team,” said Mallamaci, whose Beavers will travel next Friday for a rematch at Graham. “You are not going to out-coach her, your kids are not going to out-hustle them so you are going to have to out-play them.”
— Contact Brian Woodson
at bwoodson@bdtonline.com

at Bluefield High School
GRAHAM (1-0)
Karly Morgan 3 0-0 6, Tori Repass 3 1-3 8, Liz Workman 3 4-9 10, Leah Gillespie 1 0-5 2, Hannah Stowers 1 0-0 2, Ashley Moretto 3 2-5 8, Erin Wilson 2 2-4 6, Alysia Leung 0 0-0 0, Candice Lewis 0 0-0 0, Kaylan Stanley 0 0-0 0, Ashley Matthews 1 0-0 2. Totals 17 9-26 44.
BLUEFIELD (0-3)
Tyra Jackson 4 1-4 9, Kaitlyn Thompson 1 0-0 2, Dazia Edwards 1 4-7 6, Khadijah Brown 0 0-1 0, Shelia Hopkins 7 4-9 18, Bailey Cassell 0 0-0 0, Jessica Hayden 0 0-2 0, Chelsea Lester 1 0-0 2. Totals 14 9-23 37.
Graham................................10 13 12 9 — 44
Bluefield.................................4 6 18 9 — 37
3-point goals: GR 1 (Repass 1); BF 0. Total fouls: GR 20; BF 21. Fouled out: Morgan, Brown. JV—GR 35-21.