ST. CLAIRSVILLE senior Craig Bober goes up for two of his game-high 20 points during Tuesday’s game against Bellaire. The Red Devils rolled to an 82-33 victory.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE – Momentum plays a huge roll in sports. And when a team with as many scorers as St. Clairsville has catches fire, there’s not much that can slow it down.

The Red Devils put four players in double figures and, defensively, forced 24 Bellaire turnovers en route to taking care of their Belmont County rivals by an 82-33 count on John Jenkins Court. The victory was the 19th straight for St. Clairsville over Bellaire on the hardwood.

“Everybody knows we have been scoring a lot of points, and we did again tonight, but we’ve concentrated the last couple days of getting back to guarding. We guarded the first few games really well, we didn’t guard so well the last couple of games, and they had good players too which was part of it, but we really concentrated on that. Defense is all about effort and that’s what we brought, the defensive effort tonight,” Red Devils coach Ryan Clifford said. “We understand, or at least we should understand, that the defensive end ignites the offense. When we don’t let them score, we get down the floor a lot faster and get transition baskets, which is what we are after.”

Meanwhile, second-year Bellaire head coach Ben Doyle didn’t need long to pinpoint his team’s biggest issue.

“The turnovers were what started our downfall tonight, and we’ve got to take better care of the ball. This was good competition tonight and we knew that coming in. it was a tough matchup, but we can’t help them, so those turnovers are something we are going to have to keep working on to fix,” noted Doyle. “Our goal is to win the week. We have three games this week, and we can still win the week, so that’s what we are focused on. Playing against competition like this will only help us and make us stronger going forward, but we have the goal of winning the week and that’s what we are sticking to. Give St. Clairsville credit, they caused a lot of those turnovers, but we can’t help good teams.

The teams were actually fairly even over the first four minutes of the game as the Big Reds (1-5) held a 6-4 lead at the 4:48 mark behind the play of Jacob Marthaler and A.J. McCarthy. Unfortunately for Bellaire, that was its last lead of the game and its last bucket of the quarter, as St. Clairsville (4-1) cranked up the defensive heat on its way to causing six turnovers in the opening eight minutes. This added to 6-4 senior Craig Bober asserting himself on the inside put the hosts up for good at 3:54 of the first. By the end of one, Bober’s 15 points had St. C staked to a 17-6 lead.

The second did not bode much better for Bellaire. The Big Reds had the same number of turnovers and points in the quarter at eight. Meanwhile, six Red Devils dented the scoring column in the quarter with Bober putting in a pair of baskets, while senior sharpshooter David Lane netted a pair of three pointers and another basket to help carry the Devils to a commanding 39-14 lead at the half.

The third period was all about the bonus ball, as the Red Devils sank seven treys in the frame with Lane drilling two and junior Brett Vike catching fire to score all 17 of his points in the quarter, including four buckets from beyond the arc. A bright spot for Bellaire was strong inside play from junior forwards Levi Littell and Trenton Wilson, who scored four each for the visitors in the third. The hosts outpaced Bellaire 30-10 over the quarter to hold a 69-24 edge after three.

Each team subbed heavily over the final quarter .

Bober led the way for St. Clairsville with 20 points to go with six rebounds. Vike and Lane each had four three pointers each with Vike finishing with 17 and Lane scoring 14, respectively. Senior Greg Norman added 10. Senior Justin Heatherington made his season debut for St.C grabbing eight rebounds.

“We’ve been balanced so far. It’s been a different guy, but it’s been the same guys every night too,” Clifford stated about his team’s offensive balance. “Those guys expect to score. Craig (Bober) is good inside and Brett (Vike), I can’t tell you how many hours he spends in the gym shooting, so he deserves s to make them and he expects to make them, and we expect him to make them.”

Bellaire was led by Littell and sophomore David Zwack, who evenly split 16. McCarthy and Wilson each snared six rebounds each.

While Bellaire was guilty of 24 turnovers, the Red Devils had a mere six. The Red Devils held a 27-23 advantage on the glass.

St. Clairsville will return to the hardwood Saturday as it plays the Philo Electrics in the Buckeye 8 Challenge at Ohio University Eastern. Bellaire will play Thursday at Buckeye Local.