CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Spring Mills shot the ball quite well in the first quarter of Thursday’s Class AAAA quarterfinal against University.
By making 9-of-14 shots in the opening frame, the Cardinals ensured they played from in front and built a 21-13 lead that loomed large in a 64-55 victory.
“This is a state tournament and we know each game is going to be competitive,” Cardinals’ coach Shannon Layton said. “University went on a run towards the end of the game. These guys are seasoned. They’ve been here before. They’ve faced a lot of tough competition and the reason we did that is for games like this.”
The defending state champion and No. 3 Cardinals (20-2) advance to a Friday semifinal against the winner of Morgantown-Riverside.
All five SMHS starters had at least one field goal in the opening frame, while three had multiple baskets, including Chase Jones, who led the way with seven points on 3-for-4 shooting.
“When you have to key on a couple of the best players in the state, it makes it easier,” Jones said.
No. 6 University (16-7) trailed 15-4 at one point before settling in and trimming its deficit to 21-13 ahead of the second period.
The Hawks’ deficit was still eight in the second quarter before the Cardinals upped their lead to a dozen on layups from Akwasi Opoku-Achampong and Hope Bokwe.
The Cardinals continuously clamped down on the Hawks throughout a second quarter that UHS shot 2 for 14 in, and that went a long way toward Spring Mills’ 35-20 halftime lead.
“A point of emphasis every day in practice is to limit paint touches,” Layton said. “Those guys are good in the paint and they rebound really well. We have to keep a body on all those guys to rebound it well.”
Offense hardly came any easier for University in the third quarter, which saw the Hawks make 3-of-13 field-goal attempts and 4-of-10 free throws, both of which prevented them from coming any closer to the Cardinals.
Spring Mills’ K’nes Stovall made a pair of threes in the third and Layton’s team led 49-32 with 8 minutes remaining.
For as tough as offense was to come by, the Hawks never gave in.
After trailing 53-34, UHS ran off seven straight points, a stretch that featured five points from Luke Byrer and a bucket in between from Eli Karpinski.
Spring Mills struggled to handle full court pressure and had three turnovers during perhaps University’s best stretch of the matchup, along with another shortly after that created the potential for a closer contest before Hawks’ guard Glenn Brown went 0 for 2 on free throws.
A Karpinski triple with 2:46 remaining made it 54-44, but Opoku-Achampong countered with two free throws and Tyler Jones scored on a drive to the rim with 2:07 left to up the advantage to a dozen as the Cardinals were well on their way to advancing.
“Defensively, especially in the second half, our kids did an outstanding job. Our pressure bothered them,” UHS coach Joe Schmidle said. “We turned them over quite a bit. That helped us get some transition buckets and when we started attacking the rim, we had a lot more success. We had things going the way that we wanted other than making shots. We just ran out of time.”
Chase Jones led a balanced Spring Mills attack with 16 points and made 5-of-7 shots. Tyler Jones and Opoku-Achampong followed with 14 apiece. Jones also led all players with 11 rebounds, while the latter had a game-high seven assists.
Stovall’s 11 points came on 4-for-5 shooting and made it four in double figures, while Xavier Anderson snagged 10 boards in the win.
Spring Mills shot 23 for 40 (57.5 percent) and won the rebounding battle, 40-31. The Cardinals made 10-of-15 second-half field-goal attempts, but had 20 turnovers, including nine in the final period.
“For us to have 20 turnovers and win the game is impressive in its own right. We must be doing a lot of other things right,” Layton said.
Karpinski scored 12 of his game-high 21 points in the fourth.
“I saw them playing some drop coverage and tried to attack that to get to my looks, and it seemed to work,” Karpinski said.
Byrer followed with 17 and KK Lewis scored 12 to go with seven boards.
UHS was 22 for 61 from the field and 7 for 20 on free throws.
“The inability for us to make free throws really prevented us from gaining any kind of momentum,” Schmidle said. “We’ve had a couple games like that this season. I don’t understand why. It’s not like we don’t work on it. But I’m really proud of how hard they played.”
MetroNews broadcast interview with Spring Mills’ Shannon Layton following their 64-55 win over University in the Class AAA quarterfinals: #wvprepbb pic.twitter.com/H0CLj7X76O
— Joe Brocato (@joebrowvm) March 19, 2026