St. Joseph Central girls continuing dominance

HUNTINGTON, W.Va — It’s a veteran St. Joseph Central girls basketball team that heads into the season’s final stretch looking for an unprecedented sixth straight Class A championship.

”We’ve played together forever and we have the chemistry that not many people have,” senior guard Mychal Johnson said. “Hopefully we can go out with another state title and make it four (for our senior class).”

St. Joe (16-3), which has been dominant against instate competition now for years, has played a national schedule this season with only four games against in-state opponents on the slate overall.

”We’ve played high level teams for years now, so we’re used to playing under pressure on a big stage,” senior guard Griffin Dempsey said.

Dempsey, along with Johnson and Asia Petitte, will being playing at the Division I level next year as Dempsey is headed to Charlotte, Johnson for Notre Dame and Petitte to Evansville.

“I’m really excited to play at the next level, but I’m going to miss the chemistry,” Dempsey said. “We’ve been together so long and having to build chemistry with other people doesn’t happen often like it did with us.”

Johnson, meanwhile, will be heading to tradition-rich Notre Dame at the next level – a challenge she is embracing as she goes through her senior year.

“I’m just trying to stay in the gym and get stronger, the next level is going to be so much more competitive,” Johnson said. “Players are going to be a lot stronger, I’m going to do what I can now to get ready so I’m not a step behind when I get there.”

The Irish have been led by Dempsey and Johnson throughout the year in their perimeter-oriented offense. St. Joseph has lived by the 3, taking 558 shots from beyond the arc to 475 from inside the arc. Johnson leads the team averaging 20.8 points per game, to go along with almost six assists and six rebounds.

“Mychal is a gifted athlete, you could (always) tell she was going to be very athletic, but she put the time to develop her skills,” St. Joseph head coach Shannon Lewis said. “She refuses to lose, when the game is close I want the ball in her hands because she’s going to make a play for us.”

Dempsey, meanwhile, has deadly range from behind the arc as she is shooting an impressive 42% from 3 this season, overall putting up 16 points per game.

“Griffin can pull up and knock it down from anywhere on the floor — when you’re hitting seven a game, you give her the green light,” Lewis said. “She’s a heck of a player.”

The Irish haven’t lost to a team from the state of West Virginia since falling to Wheeling Central in the 2008 state championship game. This group of seniors, meanwhile, looks to cap off their their high school careers by winning a state title every season they played.

“They’re like my kids, we get into it every now and then, but they’re a fun group to coach and to be around – hopefully everything goes well for us the rest of the way,” Lewis said.