Photo by Kim North Martins Ferry’s Alex Reese (5) goes up for a two-handed dunk as St. Clairsville’s Tyson Pastor (10) grabs his arm during the first half of Tuesday night’s game inside Tolbert Gymnasium high atop the Purple City. Reese scored 24 points and grabbed 22 rebounds as the hosts won, 79-66.

MARTINS FERRY — One day after being named first team all-Ohio Division VI in football as a defensive end, Alex Reese made his presence felt on the basketball court Tuesday night.

The lanky 6-6 junior fashioned a 20-20 with two dozen points and 22 rebounds and all five starters reached double figures as Martins Ferry never trailed in defeating visiting St. Clairsville, 79-66, in a mutual season opener inside a packed Tolbert Gymnasium high atop the Purple City.

“Alex does so much for us, but we have to be less reliant on him on defense,” Martins Ferry head coach Derek Edwards said. “That’s really what we’re trying to do. Everyone has to do their job on defense. We can’t rely on Alex to cover everything for us.”

The teams were deadlocked at 2 before Martins Ferry led 12-11 after one quarter and 33-27 at the half as Reese secured nine second-quarter rebounds and finished the first half with 14.

“We showed signs of being good at times and we showed signs of being brain-dead at times,” St. Clairsville head coach Ryan Clifford said. “It’s tough in the opener to come down here with a big crowd, but we have high expectations. We weren’t down here to feel good. We’ve got to get better on the defensive boards. We have to attack the glass and we just stood and watched too many times.”

St. Clairsville narrowed the deficit to a single point late in the first half and early in the second, but couldn’t get the shots to fall that would have given the Red Devils the lead.

“We had the ball twice with the chance to take the lead and got good looks, but the ball just wouldn’t fall,” Clifford recalled.

Clifford’s squad trailed 38-37 after a Cole Thoburn bucket with just under 5-minutes left in the third panel, however, Reese answered with seven straight markers as the Purple Riders slowly, but surely, pulled away.

Seniors Turner Krol and Mason Redinger each scored seven points in the fourth quarter to keep the Red Devils at bay.

In addition to Reese’s 24 points, Krol added 16, Anthony Booth had 14, Tev’n Williams 11 and Redinger 10.

Thoburn led all scorers with 31 for the Red Devils. Tyson Pastor finished with 12 and Brady Shafer had 10.

“Cole is our senior leader. He’s going to score like that,” Clifford noted. “Tyson had a lot of good looks but the shots wouldn’t fall, but I’ll take those shots all night long. We’ll live and die with those types of shots.”

“I thought we guarded their perimeter shooters very well, but on the other hand, I thought we gave them too many shots on the inside,” Edwards noted. “They are not an easy team to guard.”

Martins Ferry held a comfortable 44-24 advantage off the boards. Williams had six while Krol and Booth had five each. Griffin Straub led St. Clairsville with seven in a reserve role.

“He’s going to be a good player for us. He’s only a sophomore,” Clifford said of the 6-6 Straub.

“We have all the respect in the world for St. Clairsville and coach Ryan Clifford. They are a tough team to defend and we knew that coming in,” Edwards said. “They have some talented athletes and two really good scorers. We knew it was going to be a challenge. We did just enough. I thought we played well at times, but there were some situations that we didn’t handle very well.

“Early in the season you’re going to get that some. We’d push our lead up there a little bit, but then we didn’t execute, turned the ball over a couple of times and let them hit a couple of easy shots. We were just hanging in the game when I thought we could’ve pushed our lead a little higher.”

Both teams took very good care of the basketball. St. Clairsville charted just four turnovers. Martins Ferry finished with eight.

The Red Devils are back in action at 4 p.m. Friday when they face Brooke in the opener of the Sam Andy Classic inside WesBanco Arena. Martins Ferry treks to Gnadenhutten on Saturday to play Indian Valley.