BARNESVILLE – Sometimes in a 32-minute game, a span of one minute can determine the outcome.

Such was the case Friday night in Barnesville as the homestanding Shamrocks turned away a pair of Beallsville Blue Devil rallies in the second quarter and took advantage of a huge 60-second swing to end the first half, riding the momentum to a 72-60 victory.

The Shamrocks also honored seniors Mitchell Wells and Isaac McGee before the game in a senior night ceremony.

“If you go upstairs and look at our board right now I put ‘second quarter; the last minute.’ That’s what killed us,” stated Beallsville coach Jordan Stephens. “If that doesn’t happen, you never know how the game is going to turn out to be.

Stephens continued, “You have got to give them credit. McGee was lights out He hit those threes late in the second quarter. That’s what made us go to a box and one to start the second half and we kind of limited him in the second half, but the damage was already done and that last minute of the second quarter was huge. It is really hard to overcome something like that.”

“That last 90 seconds of the first half, we had kind of been in a funk and we said ‘find your teammates.’ observed Barnesville head coach Chris Pack. “We came down and got two or three good looks and moved the ball well and played defense for 90 seconds. We may have not played much more than that for the rest of the game, but you have to give Beallsville a lot of credit. They have three solid guards there that made some difficult shots tonight, floated it in there and touched if off nice, shot well, and even when our defense was in front of them they were knocking down touch shots. They played their hearts out.

The Shamrocks (5-9) appeared to be well on their way to snapping their three-game skid as they jumped out to an 8-3 lead in the first two minutes of the contest, but the Blue Devils (3-12) were able to take advantage of solid rebounding to close the gap to 12-10 over the next three minutes. Wells and McGee led the offensive charge for the Green and White pushing the advantage back to six, however a Chase Mercer three brought the visitors back to within three. The teams traded buckets with the hosts holding a 21-17 advantage after one.

Beallsville came out prepared in the second, tying it at 21 on a bucket by Chase Weekly, but the hosts took off on an 8-0 run before the visitors rallied again. The Big Blue tied it at 31 at the 3:27 mark on a three-pointer by Chad Louden. The teams managed to play evenly over the next 2:20, however it was at this point that Barnesville delivered what turned out to be a knockout blow. Between sloppy ball-handling by Beallsville and heads-up defense by the hosts, Barnesville caused three of the visitors’ five second quarter turnovers in that final minutes and received a pair of threes by McGee to push their advantage to 44-35 at the half.

Barnesville took its momentum into the second half, holding the Blue Devils without a shot over the first 2:10 of the third quarter and forcing two more turnovers in that span. Although Beallsville was able to close the gap to nine, Hunter Graham nailed a three from the corner for Barnesville to extinguish the rally and the Rocks to a 60-45 lead after three.

Although Beallsville continued to launch from beyond the arc, the Devils were only able to convert three bonus buckets in the final eight minutes They did close the gap to eight late in the fourth, but clutch free-throws by McGee and Graham kept the visitors out of reach as Barnesville coasted to the 72-60 win.

McGee and Wells were the leading scorers with 28 and 19, respectively. “Mitchell (Wells) played inside like a big man tonight, and if he does that again tomorrow night (against Shenandoah), we are going to get two in a row,” Pack said of his senior power forward. “Ike (McGee) is always capable of taking a game over offensively and defensively and we just need him to play a full game on both ends of the court. I hope the Valley gets to see what a really great player he can be. There is another level and we haven’t got there yet. I hope we get to see it before the season is over. He can light it up.”

Wells finished with eight of Barnesville’s 31 rebounds, while McGee snared seven caroms to go with eight assists.

Beallsville placed two in double figures with Chad Louden scoring 18 on six threes and Mikey Palmer netting 13. To go with a team-high eight rebounds. Louden also dished out a team leading three assists.

Beallsville did hold a 34-31 rebounding advantage. Barnesville served 16 assists to Beallsville’s 11, while the hosts snared 10 steals compared to six for Beallsville. The Rocks turned the ball over just 10 times compared to 19 miscues by the visitors.

Beallsville visits Caldwell on Tuesday, while Barnesville is scheduled to face Shenandoah.

Scoring:

Beallsville (60) — Rush, 1 0-0 3; Louden 6 0-0 18; Mercer, 8 1-2 17; Weekly, 3 0-0 7; Palmer , 6 0-0 13; Flynn, 1 0-0 2. TEAM, 25 1-2 60 Barnesville (72) — Graham, 2 2-4; Hannahs, 4 0-1 9; Decker 0 0-3 0; Sinisgalli. 2 0-0 4; George, 2 0-0 5; McGee. 9 5-5 28; 0 0-0 0; Wells, 9 1-3 18. TEAM, 28 8-16 72.

3-Pointers: Beallsville 9 (Louden 6, Rush, Weekly, Palmer). Barnesville 8 (McGee 5, Graham, Hannahs, George).