Morgantown High School girls’ basketball might have one of the more unique -- or at least interesting -- starting rotations in the state of West Virginia, regardless of the level of the sport.
It stems from having a pair of sophomores inside their lineup, though it's not necessarily that anomaly alone which piques intrigue in the team. It's who those sophomores are, rather, that gets people’s attention. Because when you’re on a basketball court in West Virginia and you hear the last name DeVries and the last name Kellogg, it has the effect of turning some heads.
And yes, if you were wondering, the two high school sophomores in question are the daughters of WVU men’s basketball coach Darian DeVries and WVU women’s basketball coach Mark Kellogg.
Kellogg’s daughter, Kayli Kellogg, starred as a promising freshman last season for the Mohigans and is in her second-season with the program. DeVries’ daughter, Tatum DeVries, joined the program this season as her father brought the family to Morgantown.
The Mohigans were 15-2 entering a cross-state clash with Spring Valley High School on Saturday, and are likely cruising toward yet another state tournament bid, which is a fairly common occurrence in recent years for the powerhouse program -- they have won four WVSSAC State Championships and made six championship games appearance in the last 10 completed postseason tournaments.
Currently in his first season at the helm of the program, Morgantown Head Coach John Fowkes played a role in 3-of-4 of those championship wins -- The Mohigans won three consecutive titles from 2014-2016, and Fowkes served as an assistant coach on those staffs before beginning his head coaching career across town with the Trinity Christian School boys’ basketball program.
Fowkes inherited a program at Trinity Christian that missed four consecutive state tournaments and took them to back-to-back WVSSAC State Semifinal appearances within three seasons at the helm. He eventually returned to Morgantown as an assistant for the boys’ basketball program, joining a staff that led the team to three consecutive WVSSAC State Championships from 2022-2024.
He’s a coach that clearly knows winning basketball, and he cannot stop singing the praises of both DeVries and Kellogg -- it’s clear that he sees the pair as integral to the team’s success so far this season.
Kellogg is a natural at putting the ball through the net, and she has helped lead the Mohigans with some incredibly efficient scoring performances this season. She dropped a massive 38 point effort against bitter cross-town rival University, and netted 22 points in a midseason tournament win over Parkersburg High School on a neutral court -- but these are just two of numerous scoring clinics Kellogg has put forth this season.
‘We’re never ever telling Kayli Kellogg not to take any shots. If she has open shots, she is taking the shot. She always has the green light,” Fowkes quipped to MetroNews following Kellog’s 38-point performance against University.
While DeVries isn’t always quite as efficient a scorer as her counterpart, she earns high praise from Fowkes from her dynamic ability to effect that game in multiple facets without needing to be a major scoring threat.
“If Tatum doesn’t score, she’s doing other things,” Fowkes told MetroNewsfollowing the team’s January win over Parkersburg. “We have kids that if they’re not scoring, they do other things for us and it’s really cool for kids to be that way. Some kids shutdown when they’re not scoring and our kids don’t do that.”