St. C.boys fall to Wheeling Park
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ST. CLAIRSVILLE -- If a team ever needed a win, it was the Wheeling Park boys basketball squad.
After being blown away by 40 points by Morgantown in the OVAC WVU Medicine Class 5A championship game last Saturday, then dropping a home game to Parkersburg South earlier in the week, and with a road game at Morgantown looming this Saturday, the Patriots were in dire need.
However, behind a game-high 27 points from Aiden Davis and a combined 29 from Amare Johnson (17) and Mykel Davis (12), Wheeling Park was able to snap out of its slump Thursday night and cool off red-hot St. Clairsville at the same time with a 73-63 victory on John Jenkins Court before a packed house on Senior Night.
"We didn't bring our 'A' game against Morgantown, which is a very good basketball team, and we had the lead against South but let it slip away," Wheeling Park head coach Michael Jebbia said. "You hate to say 'must' win in the middle of February, and this is a very tough place to play. They (St. Clairsville) are the hottest team in the Ohio Valley. I've watched them score 96 on East Liverpool and 90 against John Marshall, and I felt for us to win the game the score had to be in the high 60s or low 70s. We can score but we can't match their production."
Following a back-and-forth first half that didn't settle a thing, the two teams were deadlocked at 33. An Aiden Davis three put the West Virginians ahead to stay at 38-35 and sparked a 17-11 run that gave the Patriots a 52-46 lead entering the final quarter.
Tyson Pastor's conventional three-point play made it 52-51 with 6:33 left to play, but four points from Aiden Davis and a bucket from Mykel Davis made it 58-53. A Brady Schafer bucket sliced the margin to three, 58-55, but J.D. Williams, fresh off the Patriots bench, drilled a trifecta from the right wing to bump the count back to six, 61-55.
"Amare had a nice game for us and Mykel had a couple of big shots," Jebbia recalled, "but I think the biggest shot of the night was the three by J.D. Williams that made it a six-point game from a three-point game."
St. Clairsville, which had won 11 of its last 12 games including the OVAC WVU Medicine Class 4A title last Saturday, had to foul in an attempt to make a comeback, but Wheeling Park cashed in 10 of 11 free throws down the stretch. Aiden Davis went 5-for-6, Johnson nailed all three of his and Mykel Davis added the other two.
Pastor, a promising junior who eclipsed the 1,000-point milestone for his career on Tuesday, led St. Clairsville (15-6) with 23 points. Senior Cole Thoburn, playing his last regular-season home game, added 18 and Brady Schafer finished with 16.
"We play Wheeling Park, which reminds us of a Division II district school, at this time of the year for a reason," St. Clairsville head coach Ryan Clifford said. "We are getting ready for the postseason and playing a quality team like this prepares us for what we're going to see down the road.
"They did a good job of defending us, but I thought we played hard," Clifford added. "We had a bad stretch at the end of the first half and another in the third quarter that let them back in the game."
Trailing 20-17 early in the second quarter, the Red Devils went on a 12-0 run for a 29-20 lead with a little more than three minutes left in the first half. However, the Patriots used a 13-4 spurt to end the half tied at 33.
"We were trying to take away Aiden Davis but their other guys hit some shots," Clifford noted. "We were willing to give them up, but, to their credit, they knocked them down."
Griffin Straub came off the bench to pull down a team-best seven rebounds as the Red Devils held a 24-20 edge off the glass. Drew Gasber added six. Aiden Davis led the Patriots with a game-high eight while also recording five assists.
Both teams shot the ball well as St. Clairsville registered 54.2 percent (26-48) and Wheeling Park 52.1 (25-48). The Patriots tickled the twine 10 times from behind the bonus arc on 23 attempts (43.5 percent).
They also took good care of the ball with a combined 13 turnovers, with the Red Devils having one more.
St. Clairsville concludes the regular season next Thursday at Buckeye 8 rival Harrison Central.