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Hot-Shooting Wheeling Central Headed To OVAC 3A Championship

photo by: Nick Henthorn

Wheeling Central’s Bella Fitzsimmons follows-through on a 3-pointer Monday against Bellaire. Fitzsimmons scored 23 points with seven rebounds and three steals in the Maroon Knights’ tournament semifinal game against the Big Reds.

WHEELING – The top-seeded Wheeling Central Maroon Knights are heading to the ECO Center after a 72-45 semifinals victory over No. 4 Bellaire in the 3A OVAC Tournament semifinals, riding a big second half to a big win against the Big Reds.

“The girls are very excited to go play at the ECO Center,” Wheeling Central head coach Roberta Olejasz said. “They’re pumped. That’s a goal, to play for championships, and they get to play for the OVAC title.”

The Knights received 23 points from sophomore forward Bella Fitzsimmons, who made seven 3-pointers to help reach her total. Kaitlyn Blake and Seneca Heller each had double-doubles for Wheeling Central, Blake scoring 19 points to go with 10 rebounds, and Heller scoring 11 points with 10 assists.

Zara Harveth and Tamya Morgan each scored a dozen for Bellaire, Harveth rounding out her statline with nine rebounds four steals and seven assists. Eliana Mason had six assists or her own.

Bellaire and Central were almost dead-even in the rebounding battle, 31-30 Big Reds, and the Knights had an advantage with a 16-9 turnover differential and 9-5 3-point-shooting difference.

“I thought Central played a heck of a game and shot the ball really well,” Bellaire head coach John Farrier said. “I thought we were too loose with the ball and had too many turnovers.

“When you play them it’s kind of ‘pick your poison.’ You want to let Blake get 30, or you want to let some of their perimeter girls get some shots? We let their perimeter girls get some shots, it kind of burned us today. They made the most of their opportunities and made a lot of outside shots. We thought we could still hang in there but turnovers cost us and widened the gap out of reach.”

Wheeling Central led 14-4 after the first quarter, 30-21 at halftime, and 53-33 after three.

LIGHTS-OUT

Fitzsimmons’s seven 3-pointer shooting display elevated a Maroon Knights offense that needed a spark out of the gate. Fitzsimmons shot 3-3 from deep in the first quarter, with either team making two field goals in the opening period outside of Fitzsimmons’ work.

The sophomore continued her marksmanship from there to shoot 7-11 from outside and finish with the game-high.

“If Bella shoots like that, that’s going to make it a lot more difficult to guard us,” Olejasz said. “If we have everyone clicking on all cylinders it’s hard to guard us.”

Wheeling Central shot nearly 40% from behind the arc on the day, making four more 3’s than Bellaire on five fewer attempts.

MAXIMUM EFFORT

Monday was a physical matchup where scrambles for offensive rebounds, held-balls, and players sprawled out of the hardwood were commonplace. With a shot in the conference title game on the line, both teams left it all out on the court.

“Before the game I told them if you go out there and play as hard as you can and give everything you got, you should be leaving the gym with your head held high,” Farrier said. “I told them after the game that their effort was good, they played their butts off and gave everything they could. I don’t fault their effort, I’m proud of their effort.”

Bellaire’s duo of Harveth and Mason helped set the tone, which Wheeling Central was intent on matching.

“They’re really good players, and they’re aggressive,” Olejasz said of the two Bellaire seniors. “We knew coming in that they were going to be aggressive so we had to be on the boards and we had to work really hard to rebound the ball and not give up second shots.”

A PIVOTAL STRETCH

Though the Knights held a lead through most of the game, Bellaire remained within striking distance until a 13-0 run to end the third quarter.

“At halftime, we said ‘Okay, [Wheeling Central] played a really good half, made a lot of shots, made the most of their opportunities.’ I thought we could chip away at the lead,” Farrier said. “I think we got it down to seven, it was 40-33, and then we got blitzed with a couple turnovers, some easy buckets, some runouts, and they got it to 15 quick. 15 became 20 and it’s tough sailing from there.”

Olejasz was happy with how her team executed the defensive gameplan Monday.

“They did exactly what we asked them to,” she said. “We wanted to keep [Bellaire] on one side of the floor, we didn’t want to give up those layups that we watched them get on everyone else. We made them settle for some 3’s on the outside.”

1,000 POINTS IN MAROON AND WHITE

Central’s Kaitlyn Blake reached 1,000 points in her Wheeling Central career on Monday, and was recognized with a golden basketball after the game.

Olejasz reported that Blake scored 726 points at John Marshall, and has now eclipsed 1,000 at Wheeling Central.

“It’s tremendous,” Olejasz said.

UP NEXT

Bellaire will travel to Union Local on Thursday for a third-place consolation game.

Wheeling Central will face No. 3 Fort Frye for the 3A title on Saturday.

“I’ve watched a little bit of film,” Olejasz said of Fort Frye. “They don’t like to run the pace that we run. We like to run the ball and they like to play a little bit slower than that. They’re going to try and slow us down and we’re going to try and speed them up. It should be interesting. We’re not just excited to get there, we want to win it. We didn’t set a goal to just be in the OVAC Championship, that’s for sure.”

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