MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The top-ranked Morgantown boys basketball team was on the ropes Tuesday night at home.
They’d frittered away a 12-point first half lead, and had to fight back to tie the score at 51 with under two minutes to play. So when the normally sharp-shooting Brooks Gage – who had misfired all night long on every one of his shots, many of them wide-open looks – lined up a three with 1:10 on the clock, the Mohigans faithful held their breath and perhaps secretly hoped for a rebound.
Instead, Gage’s stroke was pure as 24 carat gold, and another pair of clutch free throws 40 seconds later helped finally put out the Patriots’ fire, as MHS survived a thrilling scare, 58-52.
Morgantown (13-1) looked solid and energetic early on, shooting well from the floor, feeding center Carson Poffenberger to take advantage of his length in the paint, and intimidating Wheeling Park (8-4) on defense to take a 19-10 first quarter lead. But Park scratched back early and then late in the half, fueled by a trio of threes from Avery Lee – two from the outside, one conventional – to keep the Mohigans within reach, 31-23 at the half.
Had the Mohigans stepped on the accelerator early in the third quarter as they have so often this season, they might have put Park in for the evening, but missed shots, poor rebounding, and a surprising inability to stop the dribble penetration of the WP guards resulted in a tightening of the game the rest of the way. Once the Mohigans forged a brief double-digit lead at 40-30 with 2:30 left in the third, it was a steady comeback from the visitors that finally led to a tie score at 44-44 when undersized forward Brett Phillips banged with Poffenberger for a three-point play. And when DJ Saunders glided to the rim for a lay-up, Park had their first lead since the opening minute, 46-44 with 4:46 to play.
The two teams traded the lead for the next three minutes until Gage finally found the range with just over a minute to play.
“I was long all day,” he said after the game. “But I know I can’t really think about that. A shooter has to have a pretty short memory – like a closer in baseball – and just keep playing your game, get yourself open, and be ready to take it when you get an open shot. Xavier (Pryor) got it to me, and I just took my normal shot.”
Down it went, to give the Mohigans a big 54-51 lead. When Park missed a jumper with 55 seconds left, they had a problem: they’d only committed three team fouls. So they unsuccessfully tried for steals and committed fouls while the Mohigans calmly burned 21 precious seconds off the clock, until Gage stepped to the line for a pressure-packed 1-and-1 – and swished them both.
Down by five, Park never hit another shot from the floor, and when Poffenberger capped his team-leading 22-point night with both ends of a 1-and-1 from the line with 16 seconds left, it was over.
“Give all the credit to Wheeling Park,” MHS coach Dave Tallman said. “They had a great game plan, and their kids played hard. We knew they were going to take the air out of the ball, keep the score down, and spread the floor against us. I didn’t think we handled it very well, and I don’t think we handled the adversity we faced tonight like we have previously. We didn’t play well as a team tonight, the first time all year I can say that.
“Of course we never lost faith in them. We know we can shoot it, and Gage stepped up and knocked it down when he had to. I was proud of the way we found a way to win tonight, but we also know we’ll have to be a lot better when sectionals start. We have two weeks to regroup, and I guarantee we’ll play a lot better next time out. We’d better.”
The Mohigans begin sectional play as the No. 1-seed in two weeks, with times, locations, and opponents yet to be announced.
Wheeling Park 10 13 14 15 – 52
Morgantown 19 12 11 16 – 58
WHEELING PARK (8-4)
Shaheed Jackson 0 3-4 3 Beau Heller 4 1-2 12 DJ Saunders 4 1-2 9 Avery Lee 6 1-1 15 Nate Hairston 3 0-0 6 Brett Phillips 3 1-3 7 Totals 20 7-12 52
MORGANTOWN (13-1)
Luke Bechtel 4 1-3 10 Brooks Gage 1 2-2 5 Xavier Pryor 3 0-0 7 Carson Poffenberger 8 6-8 22 Alec Poland 6 1-2 14 Totals 22 10-16 58
3-pointers – WP 5 (Heller 3, Lee 2), MHS 4 (Gage, Poland, Bechtel, Pryor)
