In the third quarter though, the Maroon caught fire. A 13-3 near the end of the period propelled Central to a 74-56 victory over Charleston Catholic, as Wheeling Central improved to 11-0 on the season behind Eli Sancomb’s 30 points.

“A huge game, we’ve developed a pretty good rivalry,” Wheeling Central head coach Mel Stephens said. “We play them one time a year in the regular season, and then a lot of times we see them in Charleston. So it’s a good rivalry. They’re well-coached, they’re a good team. They were 8-4 coming in, but they had some guys banged up a little bit early, they were 6-1 in games when they had everybody healthy. We knew they were going to come in and give us a good shot.”

Eli Sancomb stuffed the stat sheet with a 30-point, 14-rebound double-double, adding five assists and four steals.

Teammate Max Olejasz also had a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds, while Nico Kusic finished with 19 points. Luke Sancomb hit a trifecta of 3-pointers to score nine.

Trailing 30-23 at halftime, Charleston Catholic pulled within two points, trailing 38-36. But the Irish, who had not led since a 6-4 advantage in the first quarter, would get no closer. Wheeling Central capitalized on a flurry of Irish turnovers and found quick scores on the other end to launch a 13-3 run and go ahead 51-39 before Charleston Catholic called a timeout. Wheeling Central led 55-41 going into the fourth. Eli Sancomb scored 13 points in the quarter, and Kusic scored eight.

“We felt coming in that if we could get a little bit of a lead on them– I mean, they’re very methodical, especially on the offensive end, and we thought if we could get a lead and force them to have to play from behind, that would definitely be in our favor,” Stephens said. “But they hung in there. They made some big shots. I thought the Hale kid made some big shots for them and kept ’em close to where we had to play strong down the stretch to finish.”

Mikaden Hale led Charleston Catholic with 18 points, while Wilkes Aliff scored 13, Zaden Ranson scored 12 with seven rebounds and five assists, and Will Gruse scored 11.

Luke Sancomb nailed a 3-pointer to open up the fourth quarter, and Charleston Catholic never got closer than eight the rest of the way.

“I don’t think we played our best game in the first half, you know, part of that is a credit to [Charleston Catholic],” Stephens said. “We did some things that we haven’t really done as far as not making great decisions sometimes, you know, mistakes we haven’t made in the first 10 games, but in the second half, we picked it up a little bit. Eli was able to get to the rim a good bit, Luke made a couple big shots and I thought Nico Kusic, his ability to get to the rim and score was a big plus for us.”

The two teams spent the first quarter feeling each other out, with lids on the basket on either end. Wheeling Central shot 37.5 percent from the field in the quarter, and Charleston Catholic shot 31 percent. The Maroon Knights owned a slim 17-13 advantage after the opening frame.

Central outrebounded the Irish 32-21, while Charleston Catholic had two more assists than the Maroon, 12-10.

Friday’s game was moved up from an original Saturday date due to anticipated heavy snowfall this weekend.