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River defeats St. Clairsville in avenging previous loss

ST. CLAIRSVILLE’S Drew Sefsick makes a move to the bucket as River’s Ty Long defends during the second half of Wednesday’s game in Hannibal. The Pilots avenged a setback from a couple of weeks ago with a 44-40 victory.

HANNIBAL — River has seemingly been involved in game after game of low-scoring, grind-it-out-affairs since the calendar flipped to 2021, but the Pilots have come out on the short end of the score in several of those, too.

The law of averages would indicate that a few of those were going to, eventually, go River’s way.

Wednesday night’s encounter with St. Clairsville inside the R.L. Potts Gymnasium could indicate a shift in the narrative is forthcoming.

River used an impressive defensive performance, made enough plays and shots down the stretch to fend off what had been a red-hot Red Devil squad for a hard-earned 44-40 victory.

“We had some chances that we squandered, in the fourth, to extend the lead, but the biggest thing we did was play defense,” a satisfied Mark Romick said. “We limited them to one shot and that’s hard to do with their size and athleticism. I thought our defense was exceptional.”

It’s tough to argue that when considering the Red Devils have had only one other game this season — a loss to New Philadelphia — where they’d score fewer points. Taking that a step farther, they’re leading scoring team in the area at nearly 70 points a game.

“When you play 22 games, some nights just aren’t your night and tonight was not one of our nights,” St. C. head coach Ryan Clifford said. “Give River credit. They played well, but we didn’t play with the (same) energy we’d been playing with. We were not locked in and we had too many mental mistakes, on top of about a million physical mistakes, to overcome.”

Still, however, St. Clairsville had opportunities. Actually, the Red Devils owned a 38-37 lead with just under three minutes to play when Drew Sefsick tallied his game-best 16th point.

After a couple of empty trips on both ends of the floor, impressive freshman Kabel Isaly hit maybe the biggest shot of his young career when he buried a corner trey to put the Pilots up, 40-38.

St. Clairsville, which struggled mightily from the field, came up empty on the ensuing possession and immediately began to foul since it had five to give before the bonus. Eventually, the Pilots got to the line and Romick, who has watched his team struggle from the stripe at times this season, was getting close to a case of deja vu as he watched his team sink just 4-of-9 down the stretch.

“We hit enough foul shots,” Romick pointed out. “I thought we took good care of the ball against their pressure, which was big for us, too.”

River, which victimized by turnovers in its loss to Fort Frye on Friday, was charted for only six miscues.

On top of that, the Pilots were balanced in the scoring column. Their sophomore leaders — Brody Lollathin and Ty Long — each had 10. Brody Longwell also went for 10, all but eight of those came in the first half.

St. Clairsville (12-8), which has four starters averaging 12 points or better, had no one other Sefsick in twin figures. Actually, junior Colin Oberdick, who averages nine points a game, finished with eight.

“We’re going to get on the bus and leave (this game) here,” Clifford said. “Luckily, we’re an hour away (from home), when we leave it, it will be an hour away. We’re going to move on to the two games this weekend. We had some guys, who have been playing really well for us, not play well. We’re not going to let one game dictate us. We just have to be better.”

River held a 34-24 edge on the glass. Long battled with St. C.’s 6-7 center Avery Henry all evening en route to nine boards. Lollathin grabbed seven. St. C. got nine from Henry and eight from Sefsick.

Neither team has long before it’s back in action. River is scheduled to visit Union Local this afternoon, while the Red Devils trek to Beaver Local on Friday before welcoming Caldwell on Saturday.

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