Bruce McKean
Contributing Writer
The Harman girls varsity basketball team traveled to Pocahontas County High School on Tuesday, January 27 to play the PCHS JV team.
The match-up at Harman, scheduled for January 13, had to be cancelled due to bad weather. Harman also schedules games with JV teams from Tucker County and Tygarts Valley. The rest of its schedule is with varsity squads.
This year Harman fielded a team of seven players, one more than last year, with three freshmen, two seniors, one sophomore and one junior on the squad that is coached by Greg Hiser. Four of the players are new to the team this season, and one of them, senior 6’2″ Emma Yokum, plus returning junior Catlyn Bennett would score 13 and 11 points respectively to account for 24 of Harman’s final 26 points. Yokum had a double-double with an amazing 19 rebounds.
Harman scored only 14 points last year at PCHS, but that game will go down in history for no player on either team being called for a foul. This year both squads were called for 14 fouls each and neither team shot their foul shots very well: six of 16 for Harman and 4 of 11 for PCHS.
Mary Kelley also showed what she was capable of at Harman last year when she made six treys, three in each of the first two quarters and scored 22 of her 24 points in that half. The team went on to hit nine threes in that game.
The Phil Anderson and Mike Murphy coached squad this year gained points from eight of their 10 players and produced a 42-26 win. PCHS forced Harman into 27 turnovers, but Harman also forced 17 for the home team. No Lady Warrior got more than four rebounds, and the team grabbed 29 rebounds shared by nine players vs 36 for Harman.
Tiffany Hoover made the only three-pointer in the game, and Hoover now has seven of the 13 team threes this season. PCHS took every quarter and shot 50 percent in the first half and 32 percent in the second half. Pocahontas scored 29 points in the first half, and Kayleigh Arbogast tied with Yokum for game high scorer with 13 points followed by Brittany Sharp with eight points. Tiffany Hoover dished out nine assists and scored seven points, and Haley Bennett matched the seven points. Catlyn Sparks scored six points.
PCHS improves to 7-3 with two losses to Class AA East Fairmont and Summers County plus one defeat by Class A Tucker County. Harman drops to 2-9.
The next game for the PCHS Varsity is a make-up game at East Hardy in Baker Friday, February 6, starting at 6 p.m. The JV game has been cancelled due to a three and a-half hour trip on Saturday, February 7, for the varsity to play at Van in Boone County. That game begins at 1 p.m.
The PCHS boys varsity team will play afterwards at 2:30 p.m. There will be no JV games at Van.
Both Lady Warriors’ teams will play at Tygarts Valley Wednesday, February 11, with the JV game starting at 5:45 p.m.
The January 21 #4 Tucker County at #5 PCHS girls games that were postponed due to weather have been rescheduled for Wednesday, February 18. Mark your calendar for what is always a great battle between these girls basketball powers.