Wheeling Park Runs Away From John Marshall in Boys Basketball
Trending
MOUNDSVILLE -- Clinging to a tight lead about midway through the first half, Wheeling Park coach Michael Jebbia knew his squad had to do something to break away from John Marshall. Not surprisingly, the Patriots tried to speed the game up. The plan worked as forced turnovers helped Wheeling Park score nine of the final 10 points of the first half and tallied the final nine points of the third quarter en route to a 56-43 victory over the Monarchs Friday night at the John Marshall Fieldhouse.
"I thought JM had a nice game plan early on," Jebbia said.
"They spread us out, they got some drives on us. We had to pick up our intensity a little bit on defense to get things moving.
"We felt if we got it out of (Derrick) Derrow's hands, it would be more of an advantage for us. I thought Shaheed Jackson made a lot of big plays. He's a guy that doesn't care if he scores, but he had a lot of hustle plays, throws in a 3, hits a couple of free throws and had a lot of steals, so I really thought he was a key guy all night."
Jackson certainly was. The senior scored nine points, grabbed seven rebounds and tallied three steals for the Patriots. Jackson's biggest bucket of the night came in the final seconds of the second half. With the clock winding down, after an offensvie rebound, Jackson was dished a pass. Behind the 3-point arc, he let a shot fly and drilled a shot right before the buzzer sounded and the Patriots went into the locker room with a 31-18 lead.
"The game plan in the first quarter went well and when they saw the way it was going, they did what they should have and tried to speed us up," John Marshall coach Chad Clutter said.
"That's where the wheels fell off. I think we had 15 turnovers at halftime, and a couple of key ones at the beginning of the third quarter. Our goal was to come out for four minutes and try to cut it down again.
"I thought we played much better than we did up there (at Park) overall, but we just got to be a little bit better guarding the ball."
Cole Gilbert and Derrow combined for eight of the Monarchs' 10 points in the first quarter to keep things close. Gilbert also played his last game in a Monarch uniform as he will be having surgery on his hand.
The senior broke it the last time the two teams met and it was uncertain if he was going to play again for the rest of the year. However, after getting approval, he was able to suit up one final time. He finished with 10 points.
"Cole is going to have surgery on his hand. He broke it in the last Park game. It was nice to see him go out on a final bucket. He had a nice game inside, we just had a difficult time getting it to him. He ended up in Pittsburgh and had an MRI and CT scan on it.
"Somebody up there came down and taped him (Friday) and got the approval. Everything was legal for him to be on the floor one last time. We didn't think we'd get him back. It's a shame because he's a really good kid and we wish him the best."
After cutting the deficit to 11 on a Gilbert basket, to make the score 33-22 with 5:40 left in the third quarter, Park went on a 15-2 run to end the third quarter to take a 48-25 lead
The Monarchs, though, put together a small spurt of their own as they scored the first seven points of the fourth quarter to make it 48-32.
However, Wheeling Park scored six of the next eight to push their lead back to 20, 54-34.
"JM did a good job of their zone with Gilbert in the middle there. It's not easy to score in there. He's a good shot blocker and good defender. We're not the biggest team in the world, so we had to do something to get the game going and let some of our athletes go."
Avery Lee led the way for the Patriots with 21 points, four assists and four steals while Beau Heller scored 10 points with nine coming from three 3-pointers.
D.J. Saunders had eight points, five rebounds, four steals and five assists.
Derrow lead the Monarchs with 11 points while Roman Gray had eight.