On one hand, Sissonville's 57-51 home win over eighth-ranked Wayne on Thursday gave the defending Class AA state champions some opportunity to show they weren't a two-woman show.
On the other hand, the way in which the Indians (16-2) put a two-game difference between themselves and the Pioneers at the top of the Cardinal Conference standings was anything but a show of top-notch basketball.
"I don't know," Sissonville coach Rich Skeen said before even being asked a question after the Class AA No. 4 Indians blew a 20-point halftime lead and had to break a fourth-quarter tie in order to win their 13th consecutive game.
"I just don't know. We played terribly. I think we might have played 4 minutes of good basketball tonight," Skeen said. "There's a lot of rust there because of the days off but that's really no excuse."
Up 40-20 at halftime, Sissonville stagnantly watched as Wayne sophomore forward Aeriel Adkins led a 16-0 run to open the third quarter. Adkins, who picked up her third foul with 7:46 left in the second quarter and spent most of the first half on the bench with foul trouble, had all of her team-high 16 points after halftime. The Indians didn't get their first point of the second half until freshman forward Marleigh Bays hit a free throw with 1:22 left in the quarter.
Another bucket by Adkins and a steal and layup from her sister, freshman Lakyn Adkins, pulled the Pioneers (16-4) to within 41-40 before Sissonville senior guard Karli Pinkerton drained a 3-pointer just before the buzzer to give her team a four-point lead entering the fourth.
Wayne tied the score three times in the fourth, the final time when Aeriel Adkins scored to make it 49-49 with 4:30 left.
Sissonville senior center Brooke Reed gave the Indians the lead for good with a baseline jumper a minute later that made it 51-49, but it was a 3-pointer from sophomore Mikayla Long with 2:40 left that served as the dagger that effectively ended the threat.
"Long hit some big shots for them, especially that one right there in the fourth quarter," Wayne coach Jamie Smith said. "She had that one and she hit some big ones in the second quarter, too, and she wasn't that kind of offensive threat when we played them at our place [in a 52-40 Sissonville win on Feb. 2] and it's my fault for not having her better defended."
Long has spearheaded a 17-0 Sissonville run that ended the first half and seemingly put the game away before halftime. The sophomore hit 3-point shots on three consecutive Indians possessions that followed Lakyn Adkins picking up her third foul at the 3:19 mark of the second.
It was Long's hot hand - she had a game-high 19 points - and the early-game hustle of freshman forward Laila Arthur that proved to be the difference for Sissonville. Arthur had four of her game-high five steals in the first quarter before she also battled foul trouble the remainder of the game.
"Nobody really played well," Skeen said. "But Laila had a good first quarter and Mikayla knocked down some big shots for us when we really needed them. We've got three more games coming up that hopefully will shake the rust off of us."
The clutch play of Sissonville's underclassmen compensated for a dreadful shooting night for the defending champs. The Indians were 17 of 65 from the floor (26.1 percent) and their two leading scorers on the season - seniors Madison Jones and Pinkerton - were 3 of 18 and 4 of 14 from the field, respectively.
Skeen, like many area coaches, pinned some of the responsibility for his team's lack of cohesion on the Kanawha County Schools policy that prohibits practice and play on days when school is cancelled.
"It's ridiculous and it's not fair, when other teams can play and practice," he said. "We could have played Tuesday. They say they're concerned about the kids' safety and all that, but it's fine to have to play a bunch of games right in a row at the end of the season, and have the kids out at night every night of the week. It doesn't make sense."
Pinkerton managed to overcome her shooting woes to finish with 15 points while grabbing seven rebounds and dishing out a game-high six assists. Reed had seven blocked shots.