Shaheen’s 28 carries BW to 65-61 OCC nod over Watkins

News Staff Reports

Just when it looked like Big Wal­nut was done, senior Adam Shaheen’s inside dom­i­nance led the Golden Eagles on their come­back of the sea­son as they outscored vis­it­ing Watkins Memo­r­ial 25–14 in the final quar­ter to secure a thrilling 65–61 Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion vic­tory over the War­riors last Tues­day night (Jan­u­ary 29) in Sunbury.

After a 10 opening-period dead­lock, Watkins Memo­r­ial (5–12, 2–8 OCC) caught fire in the sec­ond quar­ter. The War­riors outscored the Golden Eagles 22–13 in the period to take a 9-point, 32–23 advan­tage into the intermission.

Big Wal­nut (6–11, 2–8 OCC), clos­ing the Watkins lead to 47–40 with a 17-point third quar­ter, went to work behind fire­power of Sha­heen in the final 8 min­utes. The 6-foot-6 senior, tal­ly­ing 14 of his game-high 28 points in the period, fin­ished the night with 12 field goals and 4 free throws as the Golden Eagles snapped a 5-game los­ing streak dat­ing back to Jan­u­ary 5 when they defeated Hori­zon Sci­ence Acad­emy 72–41.

Sha­heen had double-figure scor­ing sup­port from senior Zach Laugh­man and junior Logan Boyd. Laugh­man, who counted four of Big Walnut’s eight three-pointers, fin­ished with 14 points. Boyd, with two treys, fol­lowed clos­ing with 11 points. Sopho­more Matt Tar­ney and junior Chase LaVeer also counted threes.

Thomas O’Sickey, with three threes, paced Watkins Memo­r­ial with 14 points while Jared Clark and Aar­manni Gar­nett fol­lowed with 12 and 10 points, respectively.

MOUNT VERNON 38, BIG WALNUT 37 — The Golden Eagles came close, but watched a lead slip away in the clos­ing seconds.

Big Wal­nut held a 37–35 lead in the wan­ing sec­onds, but was unable to close the deal as 6-foot-2 senior guard Duke Cun­ning­ham con­verted a 3-point play for the host Yel­low Jack­ets (8–10, 3–8 OCC) with 6 sec­onds remain­ing to escape with the 1-point Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion win Fri­day night in Mount Vernon.

The game was tight through­out the entire 32 min­utes of play. Big Wal­nut (6–12, 2–9 OCC) claimed a 17–15 half­time lead thanks to a 12–9 second-quarter effort. But Mount Ver­non came back to outscore the Golden Eagles 23–20 on the sec­ond half to record the come-from-behind victory.

Mount Ver­non won the third period 11–10 to close to within a point of the lead, before tak­ing the final period 12–10 to account for the final mar­gin on Cunningham’s game-winning 3-point play.

Cun­ning­ham led the Yel­low Jack­ets with 11 points while 5–7 junior guard Alex Gilbert and 6–3 sopho­more post Tyler Gal­braith backed their team­mate with 7 points apiece.

Senior Adam Sha­heen led Big Wal­nut with a game-high 13 points while junior Logan Boyd closed with eight points in the Golden Eagles’ eighth loss in 10 road games. Big Wal­nut is 4–4 at home.

Posted by Gary Henery on Feb 6 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.