CURWENSVILLE – Cold shooting and too many turnovers, especially in the first and third quarters, have been a recurring theme for the Curwensville Area High School cagers in the first month of the season.
Nothing changed on the second night of the third annual Keystone Shortway Athletic Conference-Allegheny Mountain League (KSAC-AML) Challenge.
The Golden Tide never could find its shooting touch, hitting only 14 of 59 attempts from the floor for 23.7 percent, and was unable to hang with Allegheny-Clarion Valley, which salvaged a split for its two long bus trips with a 60-37 win in Patton Hall.
Coach Matt Wassil wasn’t disappointed with his team’s effort.
“I thought we played hard,” he said. “Our execution was off in the first quarter, but I thought it got better at times.
“No matter what you do offensively and defensively, if you put in only 14 field goals, that’s tough to overcome.”
While the Golden Tide had no player with more than seven points, the Falcons relied on a three-pronged attack to improve to 4-2.
Sophomore Ryan Bartley constantly knifed through the Curwensville defense for layups and a game-high 18 points, senior Logan Wetzel bombed away from outside for 17 points and returning two-time All-District 9 first teamer and 2010 All-State Class A third teamer Allan Eaton contributed a double-double with 14 points and 10 rebounds.
Eaton, a 6-6 senior who joined the 1,000 Point Club last season, was a focal point for the Curwensville defense, and he wasn’t a factor except for two nifty spinning moves and a conventional three-pointer on a putback in the first period. His other seven points came after the Falcons had built a 57-31 lead with a little over four minutes remaining.
“He’s a good, skilled kid, and we can’t let him play one-on-one inside, so we were trying to collapse on him and make them shoot jump shots,” Wassil said.
Wetzel, in particular, made the Golden Tide pay for packing in its defense by hitting three bonus field goals, and Landon Delisio added a fourth three-pointer.
“I know he (Wetzel) burned us with some shots from outside, but you have to take away something,” Wassil said. “And we tried to take away the paint.”
Curwensville failed to slow down Bartley, though.
Six of his nine field goals were driving layups and another was a runner in the lane. Bartley also grabbed seven rebounds.
“The frustrating thing about him is he’s kind of unorthodox in the sense he’s right-handed, but he likes to go left,” Wassil said. “We told our kids that, but they were giving him left-handed drives. And that’s what he wanted.”
After Eaton’s spinning layup was offset by Boone McGary’s baseline jumper in the first minute, the Falcons went on an 18-2 run that Bartley punctuated by snaring a defensive rebound and dribbling the length of the court for a layup.
Logan had seven consecutive points, including a trey from the left wing, in the middle of the run, with Bartley and Eaton accounting for the other points.
Curwensville (1-6) never got closer than 10 points, and that was 25-15 with 4:20 left in the half when Jesse Zorger banked in a three-pointer from the right side and McGary and Kyle Barrett converted offensive rebounds into putbacks.
Eight points in the last two minutes of the second quarter sent A-C Valley to the locker room with a 38-21 advantage.
The Falcons expanded that to 52-24 in the third quarter, when Shane Hoover’s three-pointer was the Golden Tide’s lone basket in 15 shots.
“I didn’t think we really played that badly, to be honest,” Wassil said. “It was a matter of we can’t put the ball in the basket. You can’t do anything about that. You can’t run plays that change that. And you can’t change your shots.
“I thought our selection was really good tonight. A couple times we may have forced some shots, but they were almost shots that were forced because we were unaware of being open.
“I was telling the kids you have to catch the ball expecting to be open. And if you’re not, you can make a decision off that. But if you wait and look around and realize you’re open, normally that’s going to be a hesitation that causes you to miss shots.
“I think that’s what we were doing a lot.”
Curwensville did outscore A-C Valley 13-8 in the fourth quarter.
One bright spot for the Golden Tide was Zorger’s performance. The junior reserve’s seven points and seven rebounds as well as his hustle on defense didn’t go unnoticed by the Curwensville coaching staff.
“That was the first thing we said to the kids,” Wassil said. “We thought their effort was a lot better but Jesse Zorger stood out how well he played.”
Barrett also scored seven points to go with a team-high eight rebounds.
A-C Valley shot 37.7 percent (23-for-61) and outrebounded Curwensville 41-32.
The Golden Tide had 21 turnovers, one more than the Falcons had.
In the other KSAC-AML Challenge, once-beaten DuBois Central Catholic raced away from Union (3-3) in the second half for its sixth victory, 66-47.
Chris Marshall paced DCC with 17 points and 11 rebounds. Dan Fitzpatrick and Dan O’Connor tallied 14 points apiece.
Union got 16 points from Brody Pollock and 10 from Trent Corle.
Curwensville will be at home again Tuesday for an AML crossover game against Kane.
ALLEGHENY-CLARION VALLEY — 60
Allan Eaton 5 4-5 14, Ryan Bartley 9 0-0 18, Logan Wetzel 5 4-4 17, Landon Delisio 2 1-2 6, Brody Irwin 1 0-1 2, Cole Terwilliger 0 1-2 1, Hunter Ferris 0 0-0 0, Jay Kaufman 0 0-2 0, Jeff Eaton 0 0-0 0, Kevin Kaufman 1 0-0 2, Adam Hirsch 0 0-0 0, Keaton King 0 0-0 0, Andy Stewart 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 23 10-16 60.
CURWENSVILLE — 37
Alec Starr 2 0-2 4, Kyle Barrett 2 3-4 7, Boone McGary 3 0-0 6, Shelby McGary 2 1-2 5, Shane Hoover 1 0-2 3, Tanner Elensky 0 0-0 0, Will Rauckhorst 1 0-0 2, Jesse Zorger 2 2-4 7, Dan Davis 0 0-1 0, Alex Olson 1 0-0 2, Brett Gardner 0 0-0 0, Kyle Johns 0 0-0 0, Marcus Stephenson 0 0-0 0, Trevon Pennington 0 1-2 1. TOTALS: 14 7-17 37.
Three-Point Field Goals: Allegheny-Clarion Valley 4 (Wetzel 3, Delisio); Curwensville 2 (Hoover, Zorger).
Score by Quarters:
A-C Valley 20 18 14 8 – 60
Curwensville 6 15 3 13 – 37
Officials – Marvin Martell and Rick Gormont.
