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Bowman leads Brooke past Oak Glen

COMING THROUGH — Brooke’s Hope Bowman drives past Oak Glen’s Maddie McKay to the hoop during Thursday’s game at the Brooke Wellness Center. (Photo by Andrew Grimm)

WELLSBURG — With senior Hope Bowman dominating, the Brooke girls basketball team opened the season with a 45-32 win over Oak Glen in the nightcap of the annual Brooke Lady Bruins Tip-off Tournament inside the Brooke Wellness Center.

The Bruins now will play Catholic Central today at 7:30 p.m. for the championship. Oak Glen moves to the consolation game against Linsly at 6 p.m.

The 6-foot-3 Bowman, who has been a mainstay for coach Ryan Scherich’s club now for four years, had a monster night in the season debut for both teams with a double-double of 24 points and 20 rebounds. She made a run at a triple-double but fell short with seven blocked shots.

The Golden Bears had trouble scoring, especially in the first half, and got behind early. Brooke held a 21-10 lead at the half. They didn’t do much better in the third quarter, but made a run in the fourth with Bowman resting on the bench to narrow what at one point had been a 15-point Brooke lead down to five points. Enter Bowman, and the Bruins quickly pulled away and held a 13-point lead at 43-30 with 1:56 left in the game.

“I thought we played real well in the first half,” Scherich said. “I just talked to my assistant coaches and I think we were five-for-five from the foul line in the first half. The second half, I think we were only six of 16.

“Also, I just told the girls that while we had the lead the whole way, we had a lot of mistakes. Things like not taking care of the basketball (they had 27 turnovers). Letting them stick around and giving them a lot of extra shots. But I also looked around the locker room and we have only three kids right now that have a lot of varsity experience, a fourth with a little bit and several that it was the first time they’ve ever played varsity basketball. There were some nerves and everything, but all in all it was a good game to start out with.”

The four with varsity experience were the only players to score for the Bruins. In addition to Bowman, they were Chloe Fox with 14 points, Chrissy Byers with five and Natalie Ryan with two.

Senior point guard Maggie Kovalcik picked up where she left off last year, leading the Golden Bears with 12 points, and was a thorn in the side of the Bruins on defense with eight steals.

“We didn’t do too bad,” said Scott Wiley, who is in his first year back for a second stint as Oak Glen head coach. “We had trouble putting the ball in the basket and defensively I don’t know what we could do to stop Bowman. We watched her on film and had an idea of what to do. A couple of times we did it, but she’s just so mobile and executed. But getting the ball in the hole was our Achilles tonight.

“They had trouble with shooting last year and we’ve been working on it and I’m hoping to see that improve as we move forward. That’s what you have to do. You have to put the ball in the hole.”

When Bowman made a free throw with 4:39 left in the third quarter, the Bruins held their biggest lead of the game at 28-13.

From that point, Oak Glen went on an 11-0 run to whittle the Brooke lead down to 29-24.

Scherich put Bowman back into the game and she ran off eight straight points without an Oak Glen return to take off the pressure.

“I feel pretty good about the way we kept the score close and made that run,” Wylie said. “When that happened, I thought we were going to be in pretty good shape. I believe (Bowman) was out but then they put her back in and it made the difference.

“I’m pleased with our young team (Kovalcik is the only senior). There are things we can improve upon. It’s not like our season is over or anything. There were a lot of things we did well.”

Freshman Maddie McKay backed up Kovalcik in the scoring department in her first start at the high school level. She also had four steals and four rebounds.

Wiley had a trio of sophomores in the scoring column. Bailey Rager scored five, Reece Enochs had three points and Alayna Kranis scored two and was strong on the boards with eight rebounds. Junior Alexa Andrews scored three points and also pulled down eight rebounds.

Brooke 45, Oak Glen 32

Oak Glen 4-6-7-15 — 32

Brooke 8-13-8-16 — 45

OAK GLEN (0-1): Enochs 1 1-2 3; Kovalcik 6 0-0 12; Andrews 1 1-5 3; McKay 3 1-1 7; Rager 1 3-4 5; Kranis 1 0-0 2. Totals: 13 6-12 32. Rebounds: 30 (Kranis, Andrews 8 ea.); Turnovers: 22.

BROOKE (1-0): Fox 5 4-8 14; Buchmelter 0 0-0 0; Ryan 1 0-0 2; Byers 2 1-3 5; Bowman 9 6-12 24 Burch 0 0-0 0. Totals: 17 11-23 45. Rebounds: 36 (Bowman 20). Turnovers: 27.

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