By Dustin Melchior

PEDRO— Depth was the difference – or the lack of it — for the Coal Grove Lady Hornets.
The lack of depth finally got to the Lady Hornets who saw a close game slip away in the fourth quarter as they lost 53-36 to the Wheelersburg Lady Pirates in the Division III sectional finals on Saturday.
Coal Grove trailed by five points in the third quarter but failed to score in the fourth quarter.
“I thought that my girls battled the whole time. We don’t have a deep bench, so my five played up until the final minute and a half,” Coal Grove head coach Rick Roach said.
“We cut it down to five in the third quarter, but we just ran out of gas.”
Despite not playing as good of defense as Wheelersburg head coach Dusty Spraldin would have liked, the Lady Pirates shot the ball well and did enough to get past the Lady Hornets.
“We haven’t played in a week, and you never know what your going to see coming into the tournament,” Spraldin said. “We came out and made shots early. Offensively we were pretty good, but we gave up too much on defense and we didn’t rebound well.”
Abbie Kallner recorded a game-high 20 points, including five triples, for the Lady Pirates to go along with five rebounds. Wheelersburg (21-2) had another double figure scorer on the day in Kalle Coleman, who put up 11 points and pulled down six rebounds.
Coal Grove’s Emily Compliment led the Lady Hornets in scoring with 11 points, including two three-pointers, and five boards. Destiny Dolen scored eight, Lauren Crum seven and Bailey McKnight chipped in six points for the Lady Hornets.
Wheelersburg carried a 35-25 lead into the half.
Coal Grove (12-10) outscored Wheelersburg 11-10 in the third quarter and held Wheelersburg to just eight points in the fourth quarter, but failed to score any of their own in the final period.
Roach added that he was proud of his team this season, reaching both goals the Lady Hornets set out at the beginning of the year.
“We wanted to win more games this season than we did the year before, and we did that,” he said.
“We also wanted to win a tournament game in the sectionals and we did that. We don’t graduate anyone, so next year, we’ll set our goals a little bit higher, and I have no doubt in my mind that we’ll achieve those goals.”
Wheelersburg plays at 1:45 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 25, at Waverly’s downtown arena against North Adams.
Coal Grove    12    13    11    0    =    36
Wheelersburg    21    14    10    8    =    53
COAL GROVE (12-10): Hallie Frazier 0 0 0-0 0, Bailee McKnight 3 0 0-0 6, Kylie Deer 0 0 0-0 0, Emily Compliment 2 2 1-1 11, Lauren Holliday 0 0 0-00, KaseyMurphy 1 0 2-2 4, Jaida Smith 0 0 0-0 0, Destiny Dolen 4 0 0-0 8, Lauren Crum 3 0 1-4 7, Emileigh Bryant 0 0 0-0 0. Totals: 13 2 4-7 36. Fouls: 12. Fouled out: Crum.
WHEELERSBURG (21-2): Addi Collins 0 0 0-0 0, Lani Irwin 0 0 0-0 0, Ellie Ruby 0 1 4-4 7, Abbie Kallner 2 4 1-2 17, Kalle Coleman 4 2 0-0 14, Amanda Lewis 0 0 0-0 0, Karlie Estep 0 0 0-0 0, Brittany Swim 0 1 0-1 3, Mallory Bergan 2 0 0-2 4, Bella Williams 0 0 0-0 0, Paige Emnett 0 0 0-0 0, Makayla Akers 4 0 0-3 8. Totals: 12 8 5-12 53. Fouls: 8. Fouled out: None.

Jim Walker contributed to this story.