Photo | Paul Adkins

Chapmanville Regional High School’s Katelynn Manns eyes the rim on a free throw attempt in Thursday night’s home-opening win over Herbert Hoover. Manns led the Lady Tigers with 18 points.

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CHAPMANVILLE — Over the course of her prep basketball career at Chapmanville Regional High School Katelynn Manns hasn’t exactly been known as a scorer.

That changed on Thursday night.

Manns, a 5-foot-8 senior guard, lit up the scoreboard, tossing in a career-high 18 points and leading Chapmanville to a 78-48 blowout win over Herbert Hoover in the home opener at the CRHS gym.

Manns tallied the first eight points of the game, scoring a pair of inside buckets, swishing a couple of free throws and netting a 17-foot bomb, as the Lady Tigers led 8-0.

After the Manns scoring spree to begin the game, Chapmanville was well on its way to victory and improved to 2-0 overall and 2-0 in the Cardinal Conference with the win over the Huskies. The Lady Tigers had opened the season with a 58-38 league win at Wayne earlier in the week.

Chapmanville coach David Williamson said he was impressed with Manns’ performance and was glad to see his team get another conference win. Manns also had four steals in the game.

“How many did she have?” Williamson asked after the game. “Wow! She might not have had 18 points all last year. She’s one of those seniors that we have that we need to step up and play and score when the opportunity comes. I didn’t know she had that many. We did a good job of finding her. We had a lot of assists.”

The Lady Tigers broke apart Herbert Hoover’s pressing defense all night long. The Huskies didn’t pull back and Chapmanville often times dribbled past the Hoover defenders and found the open cutter for easy layups.

“They went 1-2-2 full court on us,” Williamson said. “We finally hit the middle with it but we had too many turnovers. We had some foul trouble, too. They (Hoover) are a scrappy bunch. They played hard. We were able to get a lot of layups. I talked to them after the game and they were saying that’s how they play. They like to press and they don’t like to play the 2-3 zone.”

Chapmanville leading returning scorer — 5-10 junior point guard Kristin DesRocher — battled foul trouble and was held to four points on the night. She finished with 10 rebounds, six steals and five assists.

“She just couldn’t get into the flow of the game,” Williamson said of DesRocher. “That was their game plan, too, to get the ball out of her hands. That left a lot of people open and we got a lot of layups. We shared the ball well.”

The Lady Tigers had three other players reach double digits in scoring other than Manns.

Jessica Rideout nailed two 3-pointers and had 13. Hailey Price had 12 and Hillary Hainer came off the bench to tally 11 points.

Starting senior center Katelynn Hall had eight points, 10 rebounds, four assists and four steals.

Starting senior guard Chelcie Pritchard had four points, while Autumn Baisden had three. NeNe Osborne and Samantha Wiley tallied two each. Shian Meeks had one point.

Chapmanville led 19-7 after one quarter, 36-15 at the half and 55-36 after three. The Lady Tigers led by as many as 33 points late in the fourth quarter.

“I was pleased with the effort tonight,” Coach Williamson said. “We’re 2-0 on the week and that’s a Cardinal Conference game, too.”

The Lady Tigers committed some turnovers and did not look that sharp early in the second quarter and near the end of the stanza. Chapmanville missed some layups and blew a few easy bunnies but still registered a blistering 78 points, the most scored in the state in 24 girls’ games played on Thursday night.

“We want to get up and down the court. We played 10 people in and out tonight,” Williamson said. “We got tired a few times but put some fresh legs in there. If we would have made our layups and some more free throws we would have scored 90 points tonight. It’s probably been a long time since that’s happened here. I’m not disappointed by the way that we played. We won by 30 and a win is a win.”

The Lady Tigers looked to put the ballgame away in the third quarter. After a bucket inside the paint by Manns and a Manns-to-Rideout lay-in, Chapmanville led 42-17 with 6:41 to go in the third.

Herbert Hoover, however, kept plugging away, eventually cutting the deficit to 53-36 after a 3-pointer by Caroline Thornburg.

The Lady Tigers led 55-36 after three with two Pritchard free throws with 4.8 ticks to go.

CRHS then put down the Huskies for good in the fourth quarter.

An 11-3 Chapmanville run to start the stanza pushed the lead to 66-39. Price hit two easy buckets during the run, while Rideout canned a 3-ball.

The lead continued to swell.

With 41 seconds left, Osborne, a 5-3 freshman guard, put the game on ice with a layup, giving Chapmanville a 76-43 lead — its largest of the game.

Chapmanville was scheduled to return to action with Saturday’s game at Sherman. The Lady Tigers then play at Class AA sectional rival and Cardinal Conference foe Tolsia on Tuesday in a 7:30 p.m. contest. After taking on Tolsia, Chapmanville is set to host Poca on Thursday night. Poca is bringing back its girls’ basketball program after last year’s squad folded after just a few games. CRHS will then go to Mingo Central on Saturday, Dec. 15 in a 2 p.m. matinee.

“The Tolsia game is the big one,” Williamson said. “This year, the sectional seedings go on our record against section teams. Tolsia is a tough place to go play no matter what and Ric Morrone is one of the best girls’ coaches in the state.”

Chapmanville’s JV team was also a winner on Thursday night with a 50-16 win at home over Tug Valley. Kortni Packo led the Lady Tigers with 10 points.

Chapmanville Lady Tigers (2-0)

2012-13 Girls’ Basketball Schedule

Dec. 4: at Wayne, W 58-38

Dec. 6: Herbert Hoover, W 78-48

Dec. 8: at Sherman, late

Dec. 11: at Tolsia, 7:30 p.m.

Dec. 13: Poca, 7:30 p.m.

Dec. 15: at Mingo Central, 2 p.m.

Dec. 21: vs. Nicholas County (at Hoops Classic at Charleston Civic Center), 3:30 p.m.

Dec. 27: vs. Keyser (at Capital City Classic at Charleston Catholic, 3 p.m.

Jan. 3: Wayne, 7:30 p.m.

Jan. 5: Tolsia, 7:30 p.m.

Jan. 10: Scott, 7:30 p.m.

Jan. 12: at Sissonville, 6 p.m.

Jan. 14: at Tug Valley, 7:30 p.m.

Jan. 16: at Herbert Hoover, 7:30 p.m.

Jan. 22: Sherman, 7:30 p.m.

Jan. 30: Logan, 7:30 p.m.

Feb. 2: Tug Valley, 2 p.m.

Feb. 4: at Poca, 7:30 p.m.

Feb. 7: at Scott, 7:30 p.m.

Feb. 9: Mingo Central, 2 p.m.

Feb. 14: at Logan, 7:30 p.m.

Feb. 16: Sissonville, 6 p.m.