CURWENSVILLE – Coach Matt Wassil knew his Curwensville Area High School cagers were in for a tough test against Ridgway Friday night.
A week ago, following the Golden Tide’s season-opening 41-16 loss to Glendale, he sat on the Patton Hall bleachers and proclaimed the Elkers would be one of the premier teams in the Allegheny Mountain League.
They certainly lived up to that billing with superior ball handling, balanced scoring and a tight man-for-man defense all over the court for a workmanlike 60-44 win, their third without defeat, in their AML-South Division opener.
Curwensville, which slipped to 0-3 with its second AML-South loss, scrapped throughout and showed marked improvement over the previous week.
The Golden Tide shot 38.3 percent, outrebounded the visitors 30-21 with Kyle Barrett grabbing 14 missed shots and reduced turnovers to 21, still far too many against a team like Ridgway that won’t return the favor.
“I told the kids we’re not satisfied with just playing close,” Wassil said. “We want to win, but I said you have to take some good out of it, and the good of it is that we were a lot different team tonight, a week later.
“That’s a credit to the kids, getting in the gym and working hard at practice and starting to come together a little bit better.
“It’s going to be a process for us still. We knew we wouldn’t be the team, right away, we want to look like, but you can see the point totals are up and the turnovers are starting to come down.
“And in the second half, I thought we played that way. I think we had 14 of those 21 turnovers in the first half. We’re gradually reducing that number and that’s a good sign.
“Our play got better as we went, and the kids just have to keep building off that.”
The Golden Tide played the Elkers on even terms for the first four minutes, trading the lead four times on a baby hook and putback by Barrett, a foul line jumper by Shane Hoover and a drive through the lane by Boone McGary.
Then, Jesse Reynolds came off the Ridgway bench to turn the tide.
The sophomore guard erased Curwensville 8-7 edge with a free throw at the 3:18 mark, swished a straightaway three-pointer to give the Elkers the lead for keeps, made a nice move inside for two and then set up Josh Mitchell with a nifty pass to key a 10-2 run that made it 17-10 with 36 seconds left in the period.
The Elkers burned the Golden Tide from outside in the early moments of the second quarter as Aaron Sorge, Ben Jaques and Eric Matheson buried threes in an 11-2 run that opened a 28-13 gap.
Ridgway led by 15 points on four occasions before Barrett’s free throw and Shane Hoover’s driving layup set the halftime count at 34-22.
“Some of our turnovers were coming because our guys were being a little bit tentative in the first half,” Wassil said. “When they should have been looking to score, they were looking to pass. And Ridgway was doing a good job of playing the passing lanes.
“We just weren’t being aggressive enough looking for our own shot. We told them in the locker room, ‘When you drive to the basket, look to score. I think that helped us a lot.'”
Three consecutive baskets gave Ridgway its biggest lead, 40-24, early in the third quarter, but Curwensville wouldn’t buckle and three times got within 11 points in the final period but never could slice the deficit to single figures.
“If they’ve got a 10-point lead in the first quarter and they didn’t want to shoot again, they could probably do that,” Wassil said.
We knew coming in that one of their strengths was their ball handling and the fact also the guys can shoot.
“So we were kinda in a Catch-22 there. We knew we had to pressure, and we knew we’d eventually have to foul. And the chances of them missing free throws wasn’t very good.”
He was right.
The Elkers sunk eight free throws in a row in the last two minutes. Three times, they converted both ends of one-and-ones.
Ridgway, which shot 41.1 percent with 23 field goals, had four players in double figures, Sorge high with 13, Reynolds and Jordan Lundin right behind with 12 apiece and Matheson following with 11.
Barrett took game honors with 15 points to go with his 14 rebounds.
“He did a great job for us,” Wassil said. “In the pre-season I had mentioned that Kyle could be a double-double guy if he put in the effort, because he has the ability and he has the size.
“Tonight was one of those nights he played hard the whole time he was out there. He had a great stat line.”
Barrett’s play was indicative of the overall effort put forth by the Curwensville players.
“One thing I will say for our kids is they will battle and work throughout the course of the game,” Wassil said. “Tonight was another night where they played 32 minutes of really hard basketball.”
The Golden Tide returns to Moshannon Valley League action next week, going on the road for a rematch with Glendale Monday before hosting Moshannon Valley Wednesday.
Ridgway also won the junior varsity game, 56-27. Tanner Elensky tallied eight points for Curwensville.
RIDGWAY — 60
Eric Matheson 4 2-2 11, Aaron Sorge 6 0-0 13, Ben Jaques 2 0-0 6, Jordan Lundin 4 4-4 12, Dom Aiello 0 0-0 0, Alex Oknefski 1 0-0 2, Josh Mitchell 4 0-0 8, Jesse Reynolds 4 3-4 12, Sam Roselli 0 0-0 0, Joe Jaques 0 0-0 0, Tyler Stark 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 23 9-10 60.
CURWENSVILLE — 44
Shane Hoover 3 0-0 7, Alec Starr 1 3-4 5, Kyle Barrett 7 1-2 15, Boone McGary 3 2-4 8, Shelby McGary 2 0-0 4, Will Rauckhorst 0 0-0 0, Tanner Elensky 0 1-2 2, Dan Davis 1 0-0 2, Jesse Zorger 1 0-0 2. TOTALS: 18 7-12 44.
Three-Point Field Goals: Ridgway 5 (Matheson, Sorge, B. Jaques 2, Reynolds); Curwensville 1 (Hoover).
Score by Quarters:
Ridgway 17 17 10 16 – 60
Curwensville 11 11 7 15 – 44
Officials – Jeff Jovenitti and Brian Quinton
