Admission was free Tuesday, with donations being accepted for the Steve Myers Memorial Basketball Scholarship. The exhibition drew in $4,803 in donations. The scholarship also received $10,000 in donations from a 24-hour ultra-marathon run by Paul Klenowski last month.

“Just a great opportunity,” Wheeling Park head coach Michael Jebbia said after the game. “I’d like to thank the Wheeling Park and Wheeling Central fans for coming out, coming together for that. I worked with Stevie for 22 years here, coached alongside him. Obviously he was head baseball coach here for years. And, you know, it hit us at the beginning of the school year and it’s been tough. To see Wheeling Park and Wheeling Central come together again– it was a nice turnout and we’re grateful for the support tonight.”

“I appreciate Coach Jebbia for having this,” Wheeling Central assistant coach Tyler Morando said. “We had a really good first game, the summer league exhibition game for the first responders for the flood in June. And then, some time after that game we talked about hopefully getting together to do this. So I’m glad it came to fruition. I’m glad they’ve been able to raise a bunch of money for the family and for the scholarship.”

On the hardwood Tuesday, Wheeling Central won 70-49. Max Olejasz led all scorers with 24 points, including a two-handed slam on a delayed fast break in the second quarter which put Central ahead 26-17.

Reigning Evans Award winner Eli Sancomb scored 20, and Luke Sancomb scored 12.

Wheeling Park started off the scoring for the night with a Josh Huffman 3-pointer, and the Patriots took a 13-12 lead at the first quarter’s end on a straightaway buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Kolten Whitmire.

Huffman led Wheeling Park with 19 points and JD Williams scored nine.

Wheeling Central led 31-20 at the half, and 48-28 after three quarters.

“Our kids played extremely hard and that’s one of the better teams we’re gonna see all year,” Jebbia said. “Maybe the tallest team we’re gonna see, and we will not see another basketball player like we saw tonight with number 11. Eli Sancomb plays the right way, makes everybody else better, knows where everyone’s on the court, you know, there’s no preparation for that. You, can try to take the ball out of his hands. He’s making the right play and getting his teammates buckets. So they’re a handful and they have a big-school lineup with their height and quality talent.”

The exhibition was an attraction that drew a student section which stretched from the floor to the top of the bleachers, and both teams talked about the obvious attention that a Park-Central game, even an exhibition, drew, both in June and on Tuesday.

“It was great,” Morando said. “I mean, we don’t see these guys very much anymore, but it’s great, I think, for the entire community and the city to come out and watch some good basketball. We wish good luck to those guys in their season and it was a really good night, you know, in terms of just two quality teams. It’s very early on in the season, we don’t wanna be playing our best basketball now, neither do they. So we’re using this opportunity to get better and get ready for our opening nights.”

“From 1976 into the early 2010’s, we were playing this game a lot,” Jebbia said. “We haven’t played in all sports the last 10 years, but I thought tonight was a nice night to come together. […] We wish them the best. I just want to thank both Wheeling Park fans and the Wheeling Central fans for coming out tonight.”

Wheeling Central and Wheeling Park will be in the same place again on Friday– though not in competition with each other. Wheeling Park will play Morgantown and Wheeling Central will play Brooke, both games taking place in WesBanco Arena on Friday. Wheeling Central will play at 6 p.m.. Wheeling Park will play at 8 p.m.. Tuesday was either team’s final exhibition before the games start counting.

“We’ve had a good pre-season, we just had one guy in football, really,” Jebbia said. “We had a good scrimmage against Fairmont, obviously a great test tonight. Now we get Morgantown Friday, it’s gonna be another challenge. We have 22 of these left, and then March we’ll be here. Just gotta take it day by day and get the new journey started. We have seven seniors, we have great kids and they’ll continue to improve. They’ve improved a great deal from sophomore to junior year, from junior to senior year this year.”

“We kind of knew it’d be a little bit wonky, you know, with the football guys winning the state championship,” Morando said. “We’re super proud of those guys for doing that. But, you know, as a full team, we’ve had two practices, so I thought we played okay, considering. There’s a lot of things to dial in a little bit. We scored 70 points, which we’re happy with. Our goal is to always try to keep teams under 50 and we hit that goal, but there’s a lot of meat on that bone that we need to dial in and we look forward to just getting some practices together and we’re looking forward to Friday.”