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Patience Is Key For Wheeling Central

Knights have stellar winter sports season

File Photo Taylor Duplaga was a true leader for the Wheeling Central girls basketball team. The Maroon Knights won the state title for the first time since 2008.

What a year for Wheeling Central! We continue our five-part series looking back at one of the most successful years by a school in the history of the Ohio Valley. Wheeling Central won four WVSSAC championships, as well as numerous other titles. Today is Part 3, as we look back on the winter sports, including state championship team and OVAC champion boys’ and girls’ basketball squads, as well as the hockey team that won the Bob Otten Trophy.

WHEELING — At the beginning of the season, former Wheeling Central hockey coach Zach Stahl preached to his team, that’s it’s all about having patience. While the mindset is simple, the word patience can be looked in a whole new way for Wheeling Central sports during the winter season. In order to be successful, one must be patient, and while the Maroon Knights have had successful years for the past couple, the one during the 2017-18 school year will certainly be one to remember.

Patience was the key for three sports as both the Wheeling Central boys and girls basketball teams won the state championship while the hockey team claimed the Bob Otten Tournament Championship.

The Maroon Knights hockey team was down 2-0 with just over 10 minutes to play. However, there was no panic. The Maroon Knights just kept patient. And that’s when the success came when Wheeling Central scored six unanswered goals to secure the Bob Otten trophy for the third year in a row.

Junior Chase Edgerton was named the game’s Most Valuable Player as he scored three goals in just under seven and a half minutes.

“I kind of preached to them all year, it’s all about having patience,” Stahl said, who stepped down from the coaching position to take a Special Education job in South Carolina.

“Patience from Day 1, from the first day of practice to the championship game. You kind of preached the full thing to have patience and just show up and make sure your competing and working hard. They did that. It was just an exciting season. There was no problem and no issues. All the guys came to the rink every day for practice and games. They were hungry and kept wanting more the whole year. I used the words, ‘be consistent, communicate and just have fun.’ They did that all year.”

The Maroon Knights set somewhat of a tone as they won their championship on the evening of March 5. That was one of many accomplishments that was made by the Wheeling Central teams this year as the girls basketball team was heading to Charleston just a couple days later to compete in the West Virginia Class A state tournament.

Preparing for the top dog at the beginning of the season, will help you dethrone the king. In the case of the Wheeling Central’s girls basketball team, that was it. From the beginning of the season, the Maroon Knights threw out their system they used for the past three years.

While the record showed two losses, Coach Penn Kurtz said it took a little a while for the team to get used to.

“In any season, there’s a lot of things that go on in the background that many people don’t know about,” Kurtz said. “Things that interfere with your team’s chemistry. This was a season, it took these players a while to develop some trust. We go back and go to the game we lost in Sissonville. We only lost two games all year and that was our second loss. After that game, they seemed to come together as a team. As a coach you’re just trying to get them to buy in to what you’re telling them.

“We made a lot of changes going into the year. We completely changed our offense. We changed the way we played defense and we pretty much changed everything we did for the last three years with that group. Because we knew what we were going to face in St. Joe, we were going to have to score some points and play some 1-on-1 defense.”

The patience and hard work paid off for the Maroon Knights as they defeated the Irish, 67-62.

It was the first state championship for the Wheeling Central girls basketball program since 2008. And while the Knights are relatively young, the hard work, dedication and patience has definitely paid off for the seniors in Duplaga and Riley Bennington.

“Seniors have that sense of desperation. I had two seniors in Taylor Duplaga and Riley Bennington, who played St. Joe in the finals as freshmen,” Kurtz said. “They’d been chomping at the bit to get back in that championship game.

“(Last year) we lost in the semifinals and didn’t play well. That kind of fueled them. I’ll never forget the day after we lost, Taylor and Riley were working out and getting ready for the next season. That just kept them fueled and focused. Those two seniors kind of just dragged everyone along.”

The seniors on the boys basketball team have had the same feelings as the girls. Making the trip to Charleston and coming back empty-handed really fueled the fire. After making it down to Charleston three times, Brent Price and Owen Gainer had one more opportunity to go out on top.

Those two left no doubt they would. Led by Gainer’s game-high 18 points and Price’s 16, the boys’ basketball team brought the state championship back to Wheeling in Class A for the first time since 2014.

“It just goes back to the senior class,” Coach Mel Stephens said. “That’s where your leadership starts. Those guys came up a little bit short. When we took the floor in the championship game, even the first game down there, especially Owen and Brent, you could tell they were really focused and they were going to get the job done this year.”

The boys’ team only lost two games all season, but when you lose a pivotal matchup against a quality team, it puts stuff in perspective.

“Getting back down to Charleston was definitely something that drove those guys,” Stephens said. “We really didn’t talk about it much all year. We kind of just focused on the next game and tried to get better each game and I thought we played a very respectable schedule. Our two losses were to two very respectable teams.

“Mars, Pa. went all the way to the championship game in Pennsylvania and Notre Dame. That game (Irish) kind of let us refocus a little bit. We realized we had to be ready to play and play our best every single game to try and get back down to Charleston.”

With all the determination, hard work and patience, the senior class and company were finally was able to celebrate after the final game of the season.

While it didn’t win a championship, the swimming team had a swimmer that turned some heads. As a freshman, Lauren Garan placed in three events at the state swim meet in Morgantown. She placed sixth in the 100, eighth in the 50 freestyle and was a member of the 12th place 200 medley relay team.

With three years left, if she keeps focused, stays determined, and has a little patience, she could very well be on top of the podium in the next couple of years.

“People don’t realize how hard it is to win a state championship,” Stephens said. “Every one of them are a little bit different. The common thread in all of them is it takes a lot of work and a lot of dedication on the kids part to be able to fulfill that dream.”

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