A quick stoppage to snap a photo at halfcourt seemed to snap the Monarchs junior into focus- and sparked John Marshall to storm back in the quarter and take the lead by the end of the frame, 41-38.

From there though, it was the Patriots who were locked-in, holding John Marshall off the scoreboard in the fourth quarter and marching away with a road rivalry victory, 52-41.

“John Marshall played a great basketball game,” Wheeling Park head coach Ryan Young said. “Once Rilee got that 1,000th point, the way she was playing; being on the road, the gym was loud- I thought the kids really dug deep. We haven’t really been in a situation like that where we’ve been able to come back and we were able to handle that adversity of being down going into the fourth quarter.”

Storm finished with 25 points, nine rebounds and five steals. Wheeling Park’s Alexis Bordas finished with 39 points, and scored all 14 of the Patriots’ points in the fourth quarter to lead her team to victory.

“The performance Rilee and Alexis put on- that’s two of the best players in the area, in the Valley, in the state,” John Marshall head coach Brock Melko said. “Those two put on a show.

“I told Bordas after the game, in two games now, we’ve done pretty much everything we could do to stop her. We tried doubling, man, zone, everything. For her to handle that and still have 39 is unbelievable. And for Rilee to handle what she handled- not just the pressure of 1,000 points, but playing against her rival and them kind of doing the same thing to her that we were trying to do to Bordas- everyone here tonight got their money’s worth between those two players.”

Storm and Bordas both got their points inside, outside and at the line. Each made multiple 3-pointers. Bordas went 16-18 at the line, and Storm went 10-13.

Maggie Hupp had nine points and eight rebounds for Park. Kalyn Reese scored seven points with four rebounds for the Monarchs.

The game started physical and only increased in intensity throughout. Either team had their moments to shine on defense- John Marshall’s Masyn Inclan and Nora Shock had a big hand in the Monarchs’ third-quarter comeback with their work on defense, and Wheeling Park’s Lily Brinker helped the Patriots shut down the opposition down the stretch.

“I thought we did a great job down the stretch of getting the ball in Lex’s hands,” Young began. “She finished the game at the foul line and getting to the rim. We had great contributions from Karringtyn Miller and Maggie Hupp as far as getting to the hoop more, especially early in the game which is what we were asking them to do.

“Lily Brinker did a phenomenal job on Storm in that fourth quarter because [Storm] really was in a groove there. She’s a big kid, she can shoot from the outside, she can take it at the rim, and we knew we had to do a little more to make it harder on her defensively and I thought we did.”

For Nora Shock, her inclusion in the gameplan Thursday came as a bit of a shock.

“Nora Shock,” Melko said about the reasons for his team’s comeback. “Hasn’t played very many varsity minutes all year. Tori Finley, she would’ve been kind of our secondary defender on Bordas, she was sick and not here, so we kind of decided in the pre-game.

“We didn’t even tell Nora- she played the full JV game, then we thought she’d have to play her two quarters just to give Masyn a breather. We kind of sprung it on her, I said ‘Nora, get out there,’ at the start of the second quarter, and she sparked us. She got the crowd into it, and we fed off of her defense. Then Rilee came to life offensively. We’ve got to keep our composure better down the stretch next time.”

Wheeling Park got out to a 9-0 lead, and were ahead 19-8 after the first quarter. The lead grew to as much as 13 in the second quarter, and Park led 30-21 at the break.

Successive trips to the line by Storm earned John Marshall their first lead of the game, 36-35, at the 2:30 mark of the third quarter, and though Bordas made a pair to take the lead back, Storm sunk a 3-pointer to lurch ahead 39-37 with a minute to go in the third.

Bordas tied the game 41-41 with a 3 from the wing, and a lay-in their next possession gave Park a permanent lead.

Though the Monarchs took the loss, Storm’s milestone was still cause for celebration.

“Thank God she’s a junior, I’ll say that,” Melko said. “I’ve known her literally since the day she was born, her dad and grandfather were coaching me when I was playing.

“Any good thing you can say about a player, you can say about Rilee. The girl lives in the gym, earns everything. She lives and breathes basketball. If you want me to start talking about her right now we might be here ’till March. If anyone ever has deserved accomplishment like that, it’s her. She works hard and hard work pays off.”

Wheeling Park travels to face University on Saturday. John Marshall travels to Dover that same day.