Cooke Drops 24 Points to Send Mountaineers to Baha Mar Hoops Championship

NASSAU, The Bahamas – The West Virginia University women’s basketball team collected its first win of the Baha Mar Hoops Pink Flamingo Championship with an 83-63 victory over McNeese State on Monday afternoon inside the Baha Mar Convention Center.
 
The win pushes the Mountaineers to the Baha Mar Pink Flamingo Championship game, where they will face Ohio State on Wednesday.
 
Junior guard Gia Cooke lit up the scoreboard with a WVU career-high 24 points on 6 of 9 from the field. The mark was just one shy of matching a career best. The Upper Marlboro, Maryland native attacked the paint in the game, cashing in on 10 of 13 attempts from the foul line. She added three assists.
 
Graduate forward Kierra Wheeler finished the game with her first double-double as a Mountaineer. She finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds.
 
All five of the Mountaineers who started the game finished in double figures as WVU shot 54% from the field. Senior guard Sydney Shaw finished with 14 points and three steals, as Senior guard Jordan Harrison and Sophomore Forward Jordan Thomas each had 10. Harrison dished out seven assists and Thomas had five rebounds.
 
It was all the Mountaineers to open the contest as WVU scored the first 14 points of the game across the opening five minutes. WVU and McNeese traded a pair of buckets over the next minute to an 18-4 Mountaineer lead. The Cowgirls clawed their way back as West Virginia coughed up three turnovers on three straight possessions, allowing a 13-2 McNeese scoring run the rest of the way to a 20-17 advantage for the Mountaineers.
 
 West Virginia opened the second frame much like the first, this time scoring the first eight points to an 11-point advantage with four minutes gone. McNeese would trim their WVU lead back to single digits at 32-23 with three minutes to play. Cooke took over for WVU late, scoring three at the charity strike and a corner three to match WVU’s largest lead of the game, 39-25, with a minute to play. WVU took a 13-point lead into halftime.
 
Cooke led all scorers in the half with 15 points on a 4 of 6 mark from the floor. She attacked the rim over the opening 20 minutes, leading to a 6 of 9 mark from the foul line.  
 
West Virginia outscored the Cowgirls 24-18 in the third quarter and settled for an even 18-18 mark in the fourth for their fifth 20+ point win of the season. WVU took its largest lead of the game, 21 points, at the five-minute mark of the fourth quarter.
 
The win is the sixth straight to open the season, marking the third consecutive season WVU has been perfect. It is just the eighth time since the 2000 season the Mountaineers have opened with six straight wins.
 
Next up, West Virginia continues playing at the Baha Mar Championship on Wednesday, Nov. 26. WVU is set to meet Ohio State in the championship game, with tipoff set for 1:30 p.m. ET.