The Patriots, who draw the No. 3 seed in Class AAAA, Region 1, got out to a 23-2 lead after the first quarter and cruised to a win.

“I thought we came out pretty strong defensively, pressured the ball really well in the fullcourt,” Wheeling Park head coach Ryan Young said. “I’ve been saying this for a couple weeks, I think we’re playing our best basketball right now, and we have to be able to carry that over into Tuesday against a very good University team.”

Tuesday’s will be the fourth meeting between the Patriots and No. 2 University Hawks. The Hawks have won two of the three meetings. University will host Tuesday’s game, a Class AAAA Region 1 co-final, with the winner qualifying for the state tournament in Charleston.

Going into a fourth matchup against University, Young knows what he has to see from his team.

“More than anything, we can control the defensive side of things,” Young said. “We’ve got to come out and play harder than them. We know that they’re going to be really hungry to win, they haven’t’ been down to state in awhile, they’re playing on their homecourt.

“They have a great, veteran team, a lot of seniors. It’s just going to be a great battle, should be a great high school basketball game. I think our kids will be ready and we’re ready for the challenge.”

Against Preston, Alexis Bordas scored a game-high 25, 21 in the first half, while K’lyn Neider scored 14 in the fourth quarter to end with 19, and Maggie Hupp finished with 13. The three combined for 12 3-pointers.

Ten Patriots scored against Preston as Young kept a steady flow of substitutions throughout.

“I thought Maggie Hupp played a great game, not just scoring but defending and rebounding as she always does,” Young said. “K’lyn Neider’s a sophomore who’s really come along for us towards the end of the season. Usually we put her in there for defense, and she always responds. Now she’s starting to find a rhythm offensively.

“I thought we played all 12 kids a lot of minutes and we got contributions from all of them. That’s a good sign going into Tuesday. We’re excited to win a game and move on.”

It was a good win to finish the Patriot seniors’ experience on their home court.

“We didn’t really talk about it, we tried to just focus on the game,” Young said. “We have an outstanding senior group who’ve won a lot of basketball games in this gym. It was a special way for them to go out, with a win, being able to do it together. Hopefully it’s one step towards our ultimate goal, which is to get to Charleston. We’ll see.”