CURWENSVILLE – Making the transition from the gridiron to the hardwood in one week was asking too much from the Curwensville Area High School cagers, four of them starters, who played in the PIAA Class A quarterfinal just last Friday.
They’re not in basketball condition yet, and they couldn’t get into any kind of offensive rhythm against the aggressive Glendale Vikings, who were a step quicker and continuously disrupted the Golden Tide offense by hounding the ballhandlers and jumping passing lanes to prevent open looks.
Curwensville wound up with 28 turnovers and just six field goals in 25 attempts, and Glendale departed Patton Hall with an easy 41-16 Moshannon Valley League victory in the season opener for both teams Friday night.
Coach Matt Wassil didn’t need a statistics sheet to pinpoint the Golden Tide woes.
“We didn’t take care of the ball,” he said. “We knew, offensively, there’d be some struggles.
“We’ve only had four practice with our guys. That’s not an excuse, but we knew our cohesiveness would be a little bit missing. I didn’t expect it to be quite as bad as it was.
“I thought our kids battled, but it just wasn’t there offensively.”
After Shelby McGary swished a short jumper for the game’s first points, the Golden Tide missed five shots and turned the ball over nine times in the final 7:42 of the opening quarter.
Meanwhile, it was the Michael Wigfield show for the Vikings as the 6-4 junior drove for the tying points, popped three jumpers, including a three-pointer, and flipped in a peep off a Tyler Jenny feed for all of his 11 points and a 12-2 Viking advantage.
“Glendale is a really good team, and we knew that coming in,” Wassil said. “That was one of our worries, too, playing a veteran team. And they’ve been practicing. We knew they were gonna be a little bit more sharper than us.
“We knew we had to have our best game to beat a team like that. And the chance of us coming out and playing our best basketball on the first night was gonna be slim.”
The Vikings weren’t exactly in midseason form, either, but they did shoot 41.5 percent (17-for-41) and outrebounded the Golden Tide 24-20.
In the second quarter, Jenny started to become a force along the baseline, scoring seven of his game-high 17 points as Glendale expanded the margin to 21-7 at intermission.
Curwensville’s scoring drought reached 10:21 before Alec Starr canned a free throw with 5:21 left in the half.
Changing baskets didn’t help as the Golden Tide got only a foul line jumper by Starr and a turnaround jumper by Kyle Barrett off an offensive rebound in the third quarter and fell further back.
Jenny spun in two reverse layups, hit a short jumper and drove for a conventional three-point play to go with Kyle Wright’s steal and layup, giving the Vikings a 32-11 cushion.
“They did a good job matching up out of their zone,” Wassil said. “If you don’t move the ball and get guys cutting at the right times, you’re not going to get open. If you give them time to match back up, they’ve got you.
“Half the time our guys weren’t even in the right positions, because I think they were kind of blanking mentally with our plays and where to go and where to cut. So, everything was a step or two slow.
“I told the kids, when you take that extra second or so to think where to go, the defense is already reacting to close it off. We need to work on being more reactive and thinking less on offense.”
It appeared Starr’s driving layup with 6:33 left would be Curwensville’s only points in the fourth quarter until freshman Tanner Elensky launched a one-hander from just inside the mid-court line that banked in as the buzzer sounded.
Starr scored six points and McGary grabbed five rebounds to top the Golden Tide.
“I told the kids we’ve got to keep our heads up and keep playing,” Wassil said. “It’s a long season. I think we’re gonna get better.
“The positive of tonight was that we only gave up 41 points. To play, unfortunately, as poorly as we did offensive and still only give up 41, if we could get our offense clicking a little bit, we could beat some teams. Cause, when you turn the ball over 28 times and shoot I don’t know what percentage (24) from the field, usually you give up 70 or 80.
“So our kids did a great job defensively. I’m happy with that.
“We’ve just gotta get better offensively.”
The Golden Tide will have to do that in a hurry because the early season schedule gets even tougher next week with a trip to Brockway Tuesday and a home test against Ridgway Friday. Wassil expects the Rovers and Elkers to be the premier teams in the Allegheny Mountain League South Division.
Glendale won the junior varsity game 26-15 behind nine points from Patrick Hamilton eight from Kyle Wright. Elensky was high for Curwensville with six points.
GLENDALE — 41
Tyler Jenny 8 1-4 17, Lucas Westover 1 3-4 6, Ty Stackhouse 0 0-0 0, Ethan Cree 0 1-3 1, Michael Wigfield 5 0-0 11, Kyle Wright 1 0-0 2, Patrick Hamilton 1 0-0 2, Damon Braniff 1 0-0 2, Zarek Evansky 1 0-0 2, Billy Sanders 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 17 5-11 41.
CURWENSVILLE — 16
Shelby McGary 1 1-2 3, Boone McGary 0 0-0 0, Shane Hoover 0 0-0 0, Alec Star 2 2-4 6, Kyle Barrett 2 0-1 4, Will Rauckhorst 0 0-0 0, Jesse Zorger 0 0-0 0, Tanner Elensky 1 0-0 3, Dan Davis 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 6 3-7 16.
Three-Point Field Goals: Glendale 2 (Westover, Wigfield); Curwensville 1 (Elensky).
Score by Quarters:
Glendale 12 9 11 9 – 41
Curwensville 2 5 4 5 – 16
Officials: Rick Gormont and Bill Zupich.
