North Adams senior Katelynn Boerger led all scores with 22 points as the Lady Devils defeated West Union on February 6. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
Boerger’s 22 leads North Adams to 62-43 victory
With this free throw, West Union senior Ashlah Staten became the fourth member of the Lady Dragons’ 1,000 point Club and could possibly move up to second by season’s end. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
North Adams’ Jacee Davis (11) battles for a rebound in action from the Lady Devils’ 62-43 win over West Union. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
Gliding through the lane for this shot, West Union sophomore Annabelle McIntosh led the Lady Dragons with 10 points in their loss last week at North Adams. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
Southern Hills Athletic Conference girls basketball came to North Adams High School on February 6 and it turned out to be a big night for a pair of seniors, one each from the visiting West Union Lady Dragons and the host Lady Devils. For West Union, senior guard Ashlah Staten reached a career milestone with her 1,000th point while North Adams senior Katelynn Boerger poured in 22 points to lead her team to a 62-43 victory, their 16th of the 2024-25 season.
Coming into last week’s game, the Lady Devils had already clinched the big school division title of the SHAC, but they certainly didn’t suffer from any letdown early as they jumped out to a 9-2 advantage in the opening period, getting a three-pointer from Karlie Kennedy and a pair of buckets from Tatum Grooms.
With 4:24 left in that opening frame, more history was made in Lady Dragons’ basketball lore as Ashlah Staten was fouled in the act of shooting and when she sank both attempts from the line, the game was halted as she, her teammates, her family and the fans on hand all celebrated the special milestone.
Later in the quarter, a triple by West Union’s Annabelle McIntosh pulled the Lady Dragons within 11-7 and when Olivia Lewis went deep again, West Union was within one at 13-12. With 35 seconds left in the first stanza, Jacee Davis drilled a three-ball to give the home team a 17-12 advantage after one.
The pesky Lady Dragons kept things interesting early in the second quarter which opened with another McIntosh trey, but the Lady Devils answered that with a 9-2 run, six of those points coming from Boerger, and the home side went up 26-17. West Union wasn’t going away as they got a putback bucket from Maddie Stout and a Staten three-pointer to end the half with the North Adams lead sliced to 28-22.
As is usual, sometimes you just wait for the Lady Devils to dial up the defensive pressure and go on a run that shifts momentum to their sideline and that happened midway through the third period. After a basket by Staten kept West Union in striking distance at 32-24, the Lady Devils reeled off eight straight, capitalizing on Lady Dragon turnovers. A bucket by Emma Pistole with 3:28 left in the third capped the run and gave North Adams a 40-24 lead.
The inability to take care of the basketball in the third quarter proved costly to the Lady Dragons as it thwarted any and all attempts they made to cut into the double digit deficit. When the third period closed, the Lady Devils were comfortably in front 46-28.
Early in the fourth, the two teams swapped three-point goals, North Adams’ Jaida Harrison with the pull up in transition, followed by a three-ball from West Union’s Violet Randolph. That left the home team in front 49-33 and the lead stayed in that range for the remainder of the contest. West Union got two baskets from Lewis while the Lady Devils got the old-fashioned three plus two free throws from Boerger. The final points of the game came on a pair of free throws from West Union’s Jocelyn Hall but it was the Lady Devils who claimed the conference by the final count of 62-43.
The winners were led by a trio of layers in double figures, led by the aforementioned 22 points (8-9 from the foul line) from Katelynn Boerger, who also led her team with 8 rebounds. Tatum Grooms added 14 points, adding 7 rebounds and 5 steals. Emma Pistole scored 12 points and hauled down 7 boards while leading the North Adams defense was McKenna Shelton with 6 steals. With the win, the Lady Devils improved to 16-5 on the season and finished their conference play with a 12-1 mark, an impressive 37-2 over the past three seasons in the SHAC.
“We missed a lot of easy shots tonight and come tournament time, we have to finish those,” said North Adams head coach Rob Davis after the win. “I thought we did that better in the second half and we have to be ready for more physical play now. Katelynn and Tatum run the floor so well for their size and maybe we were cheating out a bit early but missing a lot of the easy ones.”
Annabelle McIntosh led West Union with 10 points, with Olivia Lewis and Ashlah Staten each adding 9 and Maddie Stout tossing in 8. The Lady Dragons finished their regular season with a record of 11-11, the most wins for a West Union girls team since the 2000-01 season. They also finished 4-9 in conference play.
“Me being a second-year coach, we still have some growing pains,” said West Union head coach Jacob Stout. “We just have to go through some hard times to get better. It’s been a long time since a West Union girls team won 11 games so we can be pretty proud of that.”
North Adams finished their regular season on Saturday, February 8, suffering a 52-42 road loss at Ironton to leave their record at 16-6. The Lady Devils open district tournament play at home on Thursday, February 13, hosting Wellston.
“Hopefully we can take care of Wellston and get back to Waverly,” said Coach Davis. “We like to call that our second home and we usually play pretty well on that floor. We like it down there. I would have been really happy with 15 wins this season but we just kept getting better and people learned their roles and made some adjustments with players playing in different spots. Now it’s time to keep it rolling.”
West Union will also open district tourney action on Thursday with a road trek to Chesapeake.
West Union
12 10 6 15 —43
North Adams
17 11 18 16 —62
W. Union (43): Randolph 1 0-0 3, Staten 3 2-2 9, Hall 0 4-6 4, Stout 4 0-0 8, Lewis 3 2-4 9, McIntosh 4 0-2 10, Team 17 8-14 43.
N. Adams (62): Shelton 1 0-0 2, Grooms 7 0-1 14, Kennedy 2 0-2 5, Boerger 7 8-9 22, E. Pistole 4 4-4 12, Davis 1 0-0 3, Harrison 1 1-2 4, Team 22 13-18 62.
Three-Point Goals: W. Union (5)- Randolph 1, Staten 1, Lewis 1, McIntosh 2
N. Adams (3)- Kennedy 1, Davis 1. Harrison 1
