Central junior Eli Sancomb led all scorers with 24, but it was his younger brother, sophomore Luke, who produced a major spark for the Knights with four 3-pointers in the first half, finishing with 15 points off five 3’s.

Eli finished with 12 rebounds for a double-double, while Luke- despite being listed at 5-7- grabbed six rebounds, tied for second-highest on the team.

“He’s been fighting, trying to get back into the rotation after a little bit of an injury in football,” Wheeling Central head coach Mel Stephens said of the younger Sancomb. “Tonight was kind of the night where we were going to cut him loose a little bit. He came in and made some big shots, and Tyler [Dean] made some big shots for us too.”

Dean made four 3-pointers of his own. Sancomb seemed to pass the hot-shooting baton off to him at halftime, as three of Dean’s long-bombs came in the second half.

“Credit them, they made shots, we didn’t make shots,” Linsly head coach Dave Wojcik said. “They made 10 3’s, and we went 3-26 from our guards. We’ve got to do a better job of that. I thought the younger Sancomb came in and gave them a lift, he made four 3’s in a row which totally changed the game. I credit them, they made plays and we didn’t make plays.”

Linsly got their fair share of good looks, but started off icy from the field and couldn’t recoup enough in the second half.

The Cadets shot 0-11 from 3-point range in the first quarter. Adam Gill nailed a corner 3 with 5:20 remaining in the second quarter to get the monkey off their back.

The junior guard made two 3’s in the game.

Linsly went 5-32 from behind the arc while Wheeling Central shot 10-22.

A 3-pointer from Luke Sancomb and two-pointer from Eli on back-to-back possessions late in the first quarter helped Wheeling Central get out to a 17-10 lead after the opening frame. Luke Sancomb’s three 3-pointers in rapid succession in the second quarter stretched the lead to double figures and Wheeling Central led 39-29 at halftime.

The two teams played to a 32-32 deadlock in the second half, though both teams got there by making runs at different times. Linsly cut the lead down to seven, 56-49, at the end of the third quarter after Biram Ndiaye nailed a turnaround 2-point jumper on the baseline at the buzzer.

Linsly forced a cluster of turnovers early in the fourth quarter, with D’arrae Goodwin and Jackson Bonar turning them into fast break scores to bring Linsly within three, 56-53.

“We still need to clean up a little bit of the offensive stuff,” Stephens said. “We made some poor decisions and let them creep back in a little bit.

The Cadets stayed within striking distance, 61-58, as the game crossed into its final few minutes.

“I told them right then- I think it was 61-58- ‘now is the time where you have to make plays,'” Stephens said. “Late in close games you have to make the right decisions, you have to make the plays. The good teams are the teams able to do that. From that point on, we outscored them for a key stretch in those last couple minutes.”

Tyler Dean made a 3-pointer to double Wheeling Central’s lead, and the Maroon Knights finished the game on an 8-3 run, not counting a pair of free throws Eli Sancomb made after an intentional foul in the final seconds.

Dean finished with 12 points, while Max Olejasz had nine points and six rebounds.

For Linsly, Goodwin led his team with 16 points and eight rebounds, while Jaxon Murray had 12 points and Ndiaye had nine.

Wheeling Central won the rebound battle 29-26.

“It’s huge,” Stepehns said of the win. “They’re much, much better than their record, the schedule they play is off the charts. We knew coming in, they’re very good, they had a ton of size. We thought that defensively was where it was going to have to be. We were going to have to limit their big kids’ points inside, try and hold our own on the boards which I thought we did from about the middle of the second quarter-on. I thought we did a really good job on the defensive end.”

Wheeling Central (6-1) faces Chapmanville at home on Saturday. Linsly (3-6) takes on Summit Christian Academy at home on Friday.