CHARLESTON – Doddridge County Bulldog Emily Gola makes one heck of a 4-foot-11 basketball player.
She’s the one who leads her team in rebounds. She’s the one who tells her team they better step up and then she watches as everyone steps up.
And, she’s the one who always shows up big, especially when the moment shines brightest.
Take, for example, the Bulldogs’ 59-27 win over Gilmer County in the Class A state quarterfinal. She was radiant. She was spectacular. She was typical big-game Gola. Basically, everything Lisa Cheeseman possibly could have wanted, those are things Gola delivered to her fearless leader – over, and over, and over, again.
If things were any better, there really wouldn’t have been much room for improvement. Basically, Gola dutifully made sure her Bulldogs didn’t fall victim to the dreaded cliché of playing three games in a year – you know the one, right? It goes, “It is awfully hard to beat a team three times in one season.”
Yeah, that statement didn’t even come into play from the outset of the contest. It was buried deep down and never saw the light of day. Like six feet under.
Sure, this all sounds strange.
How can someone of Gola’s stature have that kind of impact on the game, especially when there is a 6-4 player on the other end? She can’t possibly be the game leader in rebounds collected? Right. There’s no way she’s fearlessly dribbling into traffic and going for a few neat reverse layups. Not so. Above all, she can’t possibly outplay her 1500-point teammate, who will go down as one of the greatest players in Bulldog history, right?
Wrong.
She did all of those things and then some. McDonough scored. Carri Lloyd rebounded. Gola did both, time after, time after time. Just listen to McDonough if you need any more proof. She graciously offered up praise for her teammate after the game.
“She was all over on the defense. She had great hands. She was constantly snatching the ball away. A lot of people don’t think so, but she even scared the defense,” she said.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
In a sign of things to come early in the game, the tallest player on the floor and the shortest player on the floor both had a chance at a rebound, guess who corralled the miss? Not the one you would think. Gola grabbed the board and went off running the other way.
Doddridge scored on the possession and everything was peachy keen from there on out. The die had been cast. The gauntlet was thrown down. Insert another clever analogy here. From the moment Gola collected the rebound, the game shifted.
Gilmer became timid and wide-eyed. They failed to execute nearly as well as they did in the regional final, and Gola had a big say in all of it. She ran down on every possession after her statement and made life miserable for whoever guarded her.
In between, she delivered the big shots Doddridge needed to secure that much coved and apparently superstitious third win over the Titans.
There was her jumper that answered Bayley Frashure’s 3-pointer that kicked Doddridge into the lead permanently just 3 minutes into the contest.
Then, she assisted on a layup to McDonough that shut down a brief Gilmer run. And you can’t forget the offensive rebound where she out-jumped everyone before feeding McDonough in the lane again for another deuce. As far as big plays, these were just what the Doddridge faithful and everyone in gold and yellow was looking for.
Again, McDonough really drove the point home at the postgame interview.
“She just played scrappy ball and there aren’t a lot of people like her and a lot of 4-11 girls who play like that,” McDonough said.
Contact Joe Albright at josephpalbright3@gmail.com.