Wheeling Park Too Much for JM
Davis Drains 5 Treys, Finishes With 25 Points
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WHEELING -- With both teams coming off of big victories, Wheeling Park was the team able to keep the momentum rolling.
The Patriots defended its home floor at The Palace on the Hill on Friday with a convincing 68-38 triumph over rival John Marshall.
Wheeling Park was coming off of a 62-54 win over East Liverpool on Saturday, while the Monarchs just defeated Union Local 53-48 on Thursday.
"There have been some close games where we just haven't been able to finish this year," Park coach Michael Jebbia said. "East Liverpool came in 11-2, they were bigger and more experienced than us, so going up there gave our kids a lot of confidence."
The Monarchs were hanging around early trailing just 6-4 but freshman Aiden Davis found his rhythm at the end of the first quarter with back-to-back treys to give the Patriots a 12-4 cushion after one.
"It's nice to get him off balance," JM coach Chad Clutter said of Davis. "When he is driving he can shoot floaters but I thought he had a few off balance shots in the first quarter and that is where we wanted him but then all of a sudden he got his feet set. We talked about trailing him and making him drive to the basket, which he is dangerous there as well, but he did a good job of getting his feet set and he shot really well."
Davis finished the game with 25 points to lead all scorers and helped extend the lead to 30-12 at halftime with two more consecutive 3-pointers - part of a 10-2 run to end the first half.
"Both teams were coming off nice wins," Clutter said. "Obviously, at East Liverpool was a big boy game that Park won but we just couldn't finish in the paint. We were 0-for-10 from 3 in the first half. I thought we held them for a while in the first quarter but then they had a lot more runs than we did."
The Monarchs began the second half on a 5-0 spurt but just couldn't quite cut into the deficit after that as the Patriots took a 48-26 lead into the fourth and never looked back.
Along with Davis' 25 points, Brett Phillips turned in 18 points and Jayden Howard buried a pair of 3-pointers to finish with six points for Park.
"At the start of the first and third quarters we struggled a little bit," Jebbia said. "But, we got some separation with Aiden's big shots. He is starting to be more aggressive driving the hole. We are asking a ninth grader to do a lot but he is not an ordinary ninth grader. He is getting more comfortable with each game. On top of his scoring he gets the ball to the right places.
"Our bench guys gave us a good lift, too. Makel Galloway, Jayden Howard and Mykel Davis came in and provided a spark. We did have trouble guarding Roman Gray but we switched Caleb (Francis) on to him to try to make him work a little harder."
Gray paced the Monarchs with 13 points, followed by Grant Neiswonger with seven points and Cody Hartman and Brennan Sobutka each with six.
"We get most of our scoring inside," Clutter said. "But, they did a great job of realizing that is where we get a lot of our points and they had two or three guys collapsing on us."