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Linsly girls holds off Maroon Knights in second half to split series

WHEELING — The opening act of a Wheeling city rivalry double-header featured two of the top girls basketball players in the valley both putting together massive games.

Only one could exit with a win though, as the Linsly Cadets avenged an earlier loss to the Wheeling Central Maroon Knights with a 68-60 home victory inside the Stifel Field House.

The Cadets (5-6) were able to hand the Maroon Knights (11-1) their very first loss of the season as senior guard Haylen Cook scored 27 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and added three assists and three steals for Linsly.

“Can you say enough about her? She does it all,” Linsly head coach Rebecca Upton said. “We gave her a different role today on defense and she really bought into it, caused a lot of havoc on the defensive end. She rebounds, she handles the ball, she scores, she’s amazing.”

On the other end, Central’s Kaitlyn Blake poured in 38 points along with 14 rebounds of her own in a game that saw the Knights playing catch-up for much of the game after Linsly took a lead in the second quarter.

“We challenged them before the game to play the entire game with hustle and pride, and that’s exactly what they did,” Upton said. “It’s a rivalry game, who doesn’t get up for a rivalry game? They were ready to go and they bought into what we were trying to do defensively. They just played their butts off. I’m so proud of them.”

Linsly held a slim advantage in the early minutes of the first quarter, but fastbreak buckets by Blake and Bella Fitzsimmons put Wheeling Central ahead 17-15 at the end of the first quarter.

The second quarter belonged to Cook, who scored 18 points in the frame, including going 7-7 at the line to push Linsly ahead 36-29 at the break.

“Haylen had, what, 18 of their 21 in the second quarter?” Wheeling Central head coach Roberta Olejasz began. “Defensively we broke down. I thought they out-efforted us tonight. Obviously in that second quarter our defense broke down and we gave up 21 points, that’s not who we are. Linsly played really hard tonight. We did not shoot the ball well today. That’s kind of the outcome we’re going to get.”

3-pointers and free throws were a big factor for Linsly in the first half, and in the whole game.

The Cadets shot 6-15 from beyond the arc in the first half, and 8-9 at the line. In contrast, Wheeling Central shot 2-6 from 3 and 3-5 on their free throws.

Linsly held the lead the rest of the game, though Wheeling Central did bring the game within a single possession on two occasions, once in the third and once in the fourth quarter.

Leading 54-45 going into the fourth, a brief injury absence by Cook would mean crunch time free-throws came down on freshman guard Irina Margineanu, who went 5-6 from the line to help fend off a Central comeback. Abby White also split a pair in the final minute-plus.

“She’s unbelievable,” Upton said of Margineanu. “She’s a freshman, she just turned 15, she’s in a different country. There have been some growing pains with her this year, and that was the best game she’s played all season. She’s really come on the last three, four games. We’ve seen a lot from her, and we knew it was there, it was just her believing in herself. What a night to choose for her to come out the whole way.”

Margineanu scored 11 points and had five rebounds, five assists and two blocks. She nailed a pair of 3-pointers in the first quarter. Jade Purpura scored 13 points with six rebounds, and Abby White scored a dozen. Both knocked down three 3-pointers.

“Abby White made huge shots, Jade Purpura made huge shots,” Upton said. “Jade played an unbelievable second half defensively out of position– she’s not a post player, she’s a guard, and she went in there and battled with Blake, I was real happy with her effort.”

Seneca Heller scored 15 for Wheeling Central.

The two teams split their regular-season series with the outcome Wednesday. Wheeling Central won on their homecourt on December 11, 92-56.

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