Photo by Kim North Wheeling Central’s Nico Kusic (15) guards Linsly’s Biram Ndiaye during Tuesday night’s game inside the packed Stifel Fieldhouse on the Linsly campus. The Maroon Knights remained undefeated with a 79-63 victory.

WHEELING — Wheeling Central knows every opponent it plays is going to take its best shot at the undefeated Maroon Knights.

Under-sized Linsly (5-13) did just that Tuesday night — for the second time this season — but, unfortunately for the Cadets, it just wasn’t enough.

Relying on its free throw shooting, Wheeling Central ran its unbeaten streak to 16 straight — 28 in a row dating back to last season when it claimed the W.Va. Class A state championship — with a 79-63 victory inside the jam-packed Stifel Fieldhouse on the Linsly campus.

“There’s still a few areas that we need to get better at. We need to understand what is a good shot and what isn’t and we need to be a little better defensively as far as recognizing where the shooters are,” veteran Wheeling Central head coach Mel Stephens said. “I thought tonight was a tough test coming off of Saturday’s game where we played probably our best game of the season by far (an 83-55 win over Monroe Central in the OVAC WVU Medicine Class 3A championship game) with only one day of practice to get ready for tonight, but if we want to reach our next goal, we’re going to be playing multiple games in a few days.”

Despite not playing its best in the first half, according to Stephens, Wheeling Central still held a 32-30 halftime advantage.

“This is their game,” Stephens said of Linsly. “They don’t have anything else to play for really, so they are going to give it their best effort when they play us. We have to be ready for that and I don’t think we were in the first half, but as bad as we played, we were still up two.”

Leading 41-38 midway through the third panel, the Maroon Knights went on a 17-7 run to end the quarter with a 58-45 margin that was too much for the Cadets to battle back from.

“You have to make some shots down the stretch,” first-year Linsly head coach Bubby Goodwin said. “They’ve got a great player in Eli Sancomb. We’ve come a long way from the start of the season. That’s our goal, to get better each day.”

Both teams went 23-for-49 from the floor, but Wheeling Central tickled the twine on 25 of 30 free throws, while Linsly was perfect on just eight tries.

“When Eli (Sancomb) is shooting most of them, that definitely helps,” Stephens noted. “We work on shooting free throws every day (in practice). We try to make the kids understand that it’s going to win you some games and it can cause you to lose some games if you don’t shoot them well.”

Eli Sancomb, the Liberty University recruit, has another day at the office with game-highs of 35 points, 16 rebounds and seven assists. He was 16-for-18 from the charity stripe. Luke Sancomb and Max Olejasz evenly split 28. Steven Brodegard grabbed six rebounds as the Maroon Knights held a commanding, 34-18, advantage off the glass.

Jackson Bonar paced Linsly with 14 points, one more than David Stankovic. Tim Ngata and Dom Fato each added eight. Stankovic pulled down seven rebounds.

Wheeling Central charted nine turnovers, two less than the Cadets.

The Maroon Knights host Oak Glen on Friday before trekking to Logan on Saturday. Linsly, meanwhile, is at home on Friday.

GAME NOTES

— Former Linsly football and basketball standout and current Dallas Cowboys special teams ace, C.J. Goodwin, sat behind the Cadets bench.

— Linsly honored its 7th and 8th grade boys and girls basketball teams at halftime for winning BMAC championships.

— Wheeling Central hasn’t lost a game in more than a calendar year. Its last loss came on Feb. 1, 2025 at Williamstown, 56-55.

— The Maroon Knights prevailed, 74-58, on Feb. 6 at home.