The Elkers had already beaten the Tide back on December 17 in Curwensville 60-44.
A tight and very efficient full-court press by Ridgway at the start of the Allegheny Mountain League battle put the Elkers out in front 10-0 before Curwensville freshman Tanner Elensky drained a three-pointer to put the Tide on the board.
Then another run by Ridgway. An unbelievable run as a matter of fact.
With the score now at 10-3 the Elkers went on a monstrous 22-0 run that carried from the first period well into the second frame increasing the lead to 32-3.
Tide senior Kyle Barrett put in a lay-up to end the drought at the 5:40 mark of the second period but the damage was already done.
Curwensville head coach Matt Wassil spoke afterwards, “We definitely thought we were going to play better tonight since we were coming off the Friday night win over West Branch. Their pressure defense was just too much for us to handle tonight and obviously we didn’t take care of the ball very well.”
The Elkers, now 12-3, took an overwhelming 44-16 lead into halftime with only the goal of having the mercy rule come into effect sometime in the second half.
With Ridgway outscoring the Tide 20-10 in the third period the mercy rule was enforced with 2:42 to go in the final eight minutes.
A couple of bright spots for the Tide was the play of Elensky and senior guard Alec Starr. Elensky, making the most of his first start, paced Curwensville with 12 points while Starr added 11. Starr scored seven in the third period.
11 players would score for the Elkers with Eric Matheson leading the way by scoring 19. Jordan Lundin and Josh Mitchell, off of the bench, each added 10.
Wassil then added, “I thought we played a little better from the second quarter on. It was tough to find a bright spot but I liked what Elensky and Starr did and the fact that the young kids competed. They played hard regardless of the score.”
Ridgway made a clean sweep of the night as it won the junior varsity game against the Tide 60-44.
Curwensville (3-11) will return to the hardwood Friday night when they play host to the Brockway Rovers who beat the Tide 62-37 December 14 in Brockway. Junior varsity action starts at 6 pm with the varsity contest to immediately follow.
CURWENSVILLE – 34
Alec Starr 5 1-2 11, Kyle Barrett 1 1-3 3, Boone McGary 0 0-0 0, Shelby McGary 0 0-0 0, Tanner Elensky 5 0-0 12, Shane Hoover 0 0-0 0, Will Rauckhorst 2 0-0 4, Dan Davis 1 0-0 3, Alex Olson 0 0-0 0, Brett Gardner 0 1-2 1, TOTALS – 14 3-7 34
RIDGWAY – 75
Ben Jaques 2 0-0 4, Eric Matheson 7 5-7 19, Dom Aiello 2 0-0 4, Jordan Lundin 3 4-4 10, Aaron Sorge 3 0-3 6, Kyle Kinkead 0 0-0 0, Keith Zawatskli 1 0-0 3, Jesse Reynolds 0 2-2 2, Tyler Stark 0 0-0 0, Tony Leithner 0 1-2 1, Damon Carlson 0 0-0 0, Joe Jaques 0 0-0 0, Sam Roselli 3 3-3 9, Alex Oknefski 2 3-5 7, Josh Mitchell 5 0-0 10, TOTALS – 28 18-26 75
SCORE BY QUARTERS
CURWENSVILLE 3 13 10 8 34
RIDGWAY 25 19 20 11 75
THREE-POINTERS: CURWENSVILLE – 3 Elensky 2, Davis RIDGWAY – 1 Zawatski
OFFICIALS: Bob Boyer, Greg Dauber, Jim DeAngelo