No. 24 West Virginia Survives Rhode Island’s Late Rally to Open Season at 68-64
Senior guard Gia Cooke poured in a game-high 28 points, and the No. 24 West Virginia Mountaineers needed every one of them to hold off Rhode Island 68-64 in a tense season opener Tuesday night at Hope Coliseum in Morgantown, WV MetroNews reported.
The win moves West Virginia to 1-0 on the young season while the Rams fall to 0-1. It was anything but a comfortable debut for a WVU squad replacing most of its scoring from a year ago, and the final four minutes felt more like a scramble than a coronation.
Cooke did the heavy lifting from the opening tip. She scored 13 points in the first quarter alone, attacked the rim relentlessly, and finished 8-of-17 from the field with 9-of-12 at the free-throw line, adding three assists and two steals, according to SI.com. “I tried to set the tone,” Cooke said. “There’s a standard. I know what coach wants from me. I got into a rhythm, kept attacking and put my head down.”
Rhode Island, which won 28 games and the Atlantic 10 Conference championship last season under now-departed leadership, came out sharp. The Rams made 7-of-11 shots to start, led for the final 5:53 of the opening quarter, and settled into a 24-22 advantage after ten minutes on 10-for-17 shooting. Alex Newson chipped in seven points and Delanie Hill added six, including a pair of 3-pointers.
Head coach Mark Kellogg was blunt about his team’s sluggish start. “There’s a standard and we don’t feel very good about the win,” he said. “Credit Rhode Island. They kind of played with a nothing to lose mindset in the first quarter.”
The Second-Quarter Clampdown
What turned the game was a stretch of suffocating defense. West Virginia held Rhode Island without a field goal until 6:12 remained in the second quarter and limited the Rams to 1-of-9 shooting and just six points in the frame, while URI missed four of eight free throws. Skylar Forbes answered the Rams’ first bucket of the quarter with a triple to put WVU on top 31-27, and the Mountaineers rode that momentum to a 39-30 halftime lead, their largest advantage to that point, after Cooke capped the half with a three-point play 53 seconds before the break.
“We actually guarded and kept the ball in front, didn’t give them open looks,” Kellogg said. “We controlled the game a little bit better and took better shots finally.”
Rhode Island made only 4 of 9 shots in the first period but did not attempt any three-pointers in the second.
Hill’s Heroics Keep the Rams Alive
The third quarter belonged to defense on both ends, with WVU carrying a 52-40 lead into the fourth. The Mountaineers built their biggest cushion, 60-43, with 6:28 remaining after Walton and Cooke combined for five straight points, including a triple from Cooke. But Rhode Island refused to fold. Delanie Hill, who finished with 26 points and went 7-of-10 from long range, fueled a 10-0 Rams run with six points in the spurt, joined by four from Sophia Vital, cutting the deficit to seven.
“The bookend quarters were not good and that was disappointing,” Kellogg said. “Not a lot of flow offensively. I don’t know if we let our foot off the gas or not, but it turned into a situation and that’s that.”
Cooke answered with a three with 2:11 left to make it 63-53, but the Rams kept battling. Amori Jarrett split a pair of free throws with 49 seconds left to get within 65-59, and a late 3 from Newson made it a four-point game. Rhode Island got the ball back once more in the final seconds after a WVU turnover but couldn’t close the gap.
What the Coaches Saw
For Kellogg, the defensive lapses against Hill were the story of the night. “We lost her way too much,” he said. “She hit a couple with hands in her face and the others she was just way too open. Some of our bad offense led to their easy offense as well.” He also admitted his staff didn’t do enough to contain the two players they most wanted to key on. “Didn’t do a great job on the two kids we wanted to key in on the most,” he said. “Just did not do a very good job.”
On the other side, first-year Rhode Island coach Colleen Mullen’s squad showed fight despite the loss. Vital accounted for half of her team’s 18 assists — one fewer than West Virginia managed altogether — and Newson added 12 points.
Zahirah Walton was WVU’s only other double-figure scorer with 12 points, and she scored the first basket of the season for the Mountaineers, driving to the rim for a bucket-and-foul to open the scoring. Khyala Ngodu led all players with eight rebounds, though she was candid about the team’s performance. “There’s a certain way we play and an identity we have here and we didn’t reach that,” Ngodu said.
Cooke summed up the approach that carried the night: “My intent before the game is to always go in aggressive. Coach trusts me.”
West Virginia now turns its attention to its next matchup with a 1-0 record and a defense that showed it can lock down in a pinch — even if the offense still has work to do before the standard Kellogg expects is fully met. For a program that fell short of expectations last season, surviving a 28-win team on opening night, however narrowly, gives the Mountaineers a result they can build on. Read the full game report from SI.com.
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