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WHEELING -- Speed, athleticism, skill and depth. Linsly had all of its assets on full display Tuesday with West Virginia-ranked Cameron visiting Stifel Fieldhouse for a battle of Ohio Valley Athletic Conference boys' basketball champions.
The teams battled early on, with the Dragons within two points late in the first quarter, before senior Caleb Murray got hot to end the first quarter and junior Gavin Jackson took over to handle the second chapter for coach Dave Wojcik's Cadets.
Murray fired in a game-high 20 points while Jackson scored 10 of his 16 during a big second quarter run and Linsly used a stifling pressure defense to help force 27 Cameron turnovers in rolling to a convincing 72-53 verdict over the Dragons to celebrate Senior Night.
With the victory Wojcik's group, which captured the OVAC Class AAA title earlier this month, improves to 15-6 heading into a season-ending three-game stretch in South Carolina this weekend. Meanwhile, coach Tom Hart's Dragons, who won the Class A crown and entered last night ranked No. 3 in the W.Va. Class A rankings, fall to 15-4 and will travel to Magnolia on Thursday.
"Linsly is a very good team with so much skill and athleticism and we know we probably won't see anyone else like them the rest of the way," Hart admitted. "But that is the reason we wanted to schedule them at this point of the season and prior to the post-season. I really appreciate Coach Wojcik agreeing to this game."
Trevor Beresford scored the game's first basket for Cameron at the 6:50 mark of the opening quarter and while over three minutes to score a point, on a Carter Anderson charity toss, and nearly half the quarter to get its first field goal, a Raef Wykes triple, the Cadets never trailed again in the contest.
Cole Burkett's hoop with 51 seconds to go in the first trimmed the margin to 10-8 for the visitors, however, Murray scored the final five points of the frame to make it 15-8 after one.
Cameron again cut the deficit to just three on a Burkett free throw and conventional three-point play from Beresford but with the score at 17-14 a short time later Linsly got hot and went on a 13-2 tear with five baskets coming courtesy of Jackson. The lead grew to 37-20 before the Dragons closed on a 6-0 run, including a Beresford hoop at the horn to make it a respectable 37-26 at the break.
"Caleb (Murray) and Gavin (Jackson) did a great job scoring for us early, but that has been our story all season long, if one isn't scoring the other is and if one of them isn't scoring then its Raef (Wykes) or Carter (Anderson) or any one of a number of other players," Wojcik admitted.
The Dragons managed to stay within striking distance for most of the third quarter, cutting the lead down to as few as seven at 47-40 on a Lance Hartley basket with 20 seconds showing, but the hosts scored the final two points of the quarter and extended that run into the score, dropping in the initial eight markers of the fourth to cap a 10-0 burst on an Anderson three with 6:35 showing to make it a 57-40 margin again.
Linsly ballooned the lead to as many as 24 at 67-43 with 3:25 to play.
"We wanted to force them into an up-tempo game, and I think we got to their legs a little bit in the second half," Wojcik added. "That seemed to effectively hurt their outside and three-point shooting. They have good size, but we did a good job spreading the ball around and finding the open guy on offense.
"I also have to point out the job that George Donovic did on their big kid (Beresford). He did not allow him to catch the ball and even had a block on him."
Donovic chipped in 12 points for the winners while Wykes, who spent most of the contest in foul trouble before heading to the bench for good in the fourth quarter, and Anderson finished with seven markers apiece. Hartley had a team-high 19 for the Dragons while Burkett added 16 and Beresford finished with 10, nine of those coming in the first half.
While the Dragons had a nice edge of 41-27 off the glass the Cadets countered that by turning the ball over just eight times in the game compared to Cameron's 27.
"They kept speeding us up and getting away from us, but we did manage to cut the deficit to 11 at the half and then down to seven in the third quarter," Hart said. "We attacked the basket better in the second half as well. I am just so proud of these kids and their efforts (Tuesday), this easily could have been a 35 or 40-point game but we managed to stay in striking distance for a while.
"I honestly believe we still have a lot to look forward to this season and this game could be one of the reasons for that."