Charleston – Tucker County’s Kadie Colebank broke a 38-year old record when she hauled in 25 rebounds in a win over Tug Valley Tuesday morning.
It took Cameron Ashlynn Van Tassell three hours to rewrite the record book before the ink dried.
Van Tassell scored 29 points and hauled in 31 rebounds as Cameron ousted River View with a 74-43 win in a Class A quarterfinal at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
The 31 rebounds not only tops Colebank’s mark of 25, but Alexis Hornbuckle’s overall tournament record of 30 set in 2004.
“I was really confused at first because they pulled me off,” Van Tassell said. “Our coach (Mike) Juliano was hyping me up going crazy and I was like ‘What happened? What happened?’ and my mom comes over and she’s crying. I was like ‘what happened?’ And she was like ‘you just broke the record’ and I was like ‘what?’ and I just started crying.”
Van Tassell, the focal point for the River View defense got to work on the boards early, finishing the first quarter with 10 points and 12 rebounds – 10 of them on the offensive glass.
With the Raiders attempting to take her out early, Cameron guards Maci Neely and Kenzie Clutter benefitted. Neely opened the scoring with a layup and a jumper followed by a 3 from Clutter.
A River View timeout did little to slow the Lady Dragons with a layup from Clutter and a jumper from Van Tassell extending the lead to 11-2. From there the latter went to work, grabbing her own misses, as well her teammates’, scoring eight straight.
When the dust settled Cameron held a 20-7 advantage after the first quarter, piling on in the second. Ten more points and nine more rebounds sent the sophomore into the locker room with 22 points and 21 rebounds as well as a 24-point lead.
“I talked to a few coaches and the common theme was that they’re better than what they look on film,” River View coach Gehrig Justice said. “I made the comment the other day that Cameron is still young but they’re young and a team that’s been state runners-up, so there’s a lot of experience over there even though they’re freshmen and sophomores. From a size point of view, we usually give people a problem with our size because we’ve got the big guards. But we don’t have true six-footer inside like they do.”
Providing the perfect complement to Van Tassell were Camron’s guards. Though smaller than the Raiders, they were able to utilize their quickness to the tune of 26 steals, forcing 29 River View turnovers. The miscues led to 34 points off of turnovers for the Lady Dragons.
“I think the girls executed very well going knowing that we were a lot smaller,” Cameron coach Holly Pettit said. “I had all the confidence in the world in my guards. Their scrappy defense – I think we caused 29 turnovers and that’s something that’s very incredible and something to be proud of.”
Van Tassell’s 29 points led all scorers while Kenzie Clutter added 11 and Emilee Dobbs added 10 for the Lady Dragons.
Haylie Payne led River View with 16 points in the loss.
Cameron advances to the Class A semifinals for the second straight year where it will play No. 6 Tucker County Thursday at 11:15 a.m.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
