BW boys rally for 46-43 OCC Cap nod over ’Jackets

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

Tenac­ity …

Big Wal­nut, with­stand­ing a late 11–0 Mount Ver­non run which gave the Yel­low Jack­ets a 43–42 lead with 1:24 to play, ral­lied for a 46–43 Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion vic­tory over vis­it­ing Mount Ver­non Fri­day night in Sunbury.

Senior Adam Sha­heen, who led the Golden Eagles with 19 points, ended a five-possession Big Wal­nut scor­ing drought with a layin for a 44–43 advan­tage with 56 sec­onds remain­ing before sopho­more Michael Buck­les sank both ends of a one-and-one with 6 ticks left on the clock to seal BW’s first OCC vic­tory of the season.

“This was a well-deserved win,” Golden Eagle head coach Eric Myers said. “It was a com­plete team effort at both ends of the floor against a good Mount Ver­non team. We were patient on offense in look­ing for good shots and exe­cuted our defen­sive game plan.”

Tied with Mount Ver­non (4–4, 1–3 OCC) with 3:41 left in the sec­ond quar­ter, Big Wal­nut (3–4, 1–3 OCC) closed out the first half with a 6–2 run. Sha­heen counted a bucket and two free throws and senior Zach Laugh­man, who backed Sha­heen with 16 points, added a bas­ket to send the Golden Eagles into the inter­mis­sion with a 24–22 lead.

“We picked up needed momen­tum at the end of the first half and car­ried it into the third quar­ter,” Myers said. “That turned out to be huge for us.”

The Golden Eagles picked up where they left off in the first half, fash­ion­ing an 18–10 run led by Shaheen’s 9-point spree — a quarter-ending run which gave Big Wal­nut a 10-point, 42–32 advan­tage on Laughman’s base­line lay-in with 6:06 remaining.

Mount Ver­non was not about to go with­out a fight.

The Yel­low Jack­ets ral­lied behind back-to-back three-point plays by sopho­more Alex Arck, who led Mount Ver­non with 15 points, and senior Duke Cun­ning­ham added 12 points along with senior Eric Ash­brook, to take its first lead of the sec­ond half, a 43–42 advan­tage on Cunningham’s bas­ket with 2:37 to play. The Golden Eagles aided the Yel­low Jack­ets’ run by com­mit­ting four straight turnovers which led to 9 Mount Ver­non points.

“We relaxed a lit­tle and lost some of our focus,” Myers said. “But we were able to refo­cus and keep Mount Ver­non off the score­board over the final two minutes.”

Myers, who noted the BW var­sity had finally over­came the flu bug, praised the defen­sive play of Chase LaVeer, Logan Boyd and Buckles.

“The con­tri­bu­tions of Chase, Logan and Michael can­not be

over­looked,” he said. “They played key roles in the win.”

Big Walnut’s junior var­sity made it a clean sweep with a 34–31 double-overtime deci­sion over Mount Vernon.

“The JV’s win set the tone for the var­sity.” Myers com­mented. “The var­sity was cheer­ing them on as they waited to take the floor.”

Big Wal­nut shot 42.1 per­cent (16-for-38) for the game, adding 13 of 16 free throws (81.3 per­cent). The Golden Eagles com­mit­ted 7 turnovers at the expense of 11 points.

Mount Ver­non made 15 of 42 shots from the field (35.7 per­cent) while con­vert­ing 9 of 16 free throws (56.3 per­cent). The Yel­low Jack­ets turned the ball over 8 times in 45 pos­ses­sions, los­ing 7 points.

The Golden Eagles and Yel­low Jack­ets cleared off 30 missed shots apiece. Sha­heen pulled down 7 rebounds and Buck­les 6 to lead Big Wal­nut on the boards. Sopho­more Tyler Gal­braith col­lected 6 and Arck 5 reboundss for Mount Vernon.

WATKINS MEMORIAL 58, BIG WALNUT 44 — Another slow first-half effort ham­pered the Golden Eagles in their bid for their first Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion vic­tory of the season.

Big Wal­nut (2–4, 0–3 OCC) fell behind Watkins Memo­r­ial (3–3, 1–2 OCC) by nine points, 23–14, after the first 16 min­utes and could never recover in drop­ping its third straight con­fer­ence decision.

The Golden Eagles, pow­ered by senior Adam Sha­heen who scored 25 of Big Walnut’s points (six play­ers accounted for BW’s remain­ing 19 points), came back out and put 30 second-half points on the board. Watkins Memo­r­ial coun­tered with 35, includ­ing 20 in the final period, to put the game out of reach.

Junior guard Thomas O’Sickey fueled the War­rior attack with 21 points, count­ing three treys while con­vert­ing 12 free throws. Junior Hunter Holton fol­lowed O’Sickey in dou­ble fig­ures with 11 points. Senior for­ward Kevin Craw­ford added 9 points.

Posted by Gary Henery on Dec 26 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.