CURWENSVILLE — Undefeated Ridgway, District 9’s top-rated boys basketball team, found the Curwensville Golden Tide to be a much different opponent Tuesday night than in its 60-21 home-court win back in mid-December.
With point guard Tanner Elensky on the Patton Hall hardwood to help Brett Gardner dribble through the tough Ridgway man press and also provide a much-needed offensive threat, the one-win Golden Tide kept the Elkers in its sights until late in the third quarter.
Ridgway, which had rolled up leads of 29-0 after one quarter and 46-3 by halftime in their Allegheny Mountain League South Division opener, was hard-pressed to be in front 12-5 at the first break and 23-12 at intermission because of the scrappy efforts of Curwensville’s all-sophomore starting lineup and junior reserve Trevon Pennington.
Ultimately, the Elkers’ talent and the hectic pace took their toll on the outmanned and undersized Golden Tide, and the visitors closed with a 30-8 run in the final 11 minutes for a 60-28 victory, their 13th.
“We played hard tonight, and we did some good things,” first-year Curwensville head coach Shane Pentz said. “Their press didn’t bother us nearly like it did the first time. Tanner helped a lot. But, also, Brett’s gotten a lot better with his ballhandling as the year’s gone by. He’s really helped in the press-break.”
Curwensville’s biggest problem was cashing in after working the ball into the offensive end, which was especially frustrating in the first half when Ridgway, too, was finding it difficult ramping up its attack against the Golden Tide’s zone defense.
Three drives by Elensky, who sat out the December game because of an injury, produced all of the Curwensville points in the first period. Two ended with trips to the foul line for three points before he made the team’s only field goal in seven attempts on a difficult layup with 2:42 left.
Josh Mitchell’s layup off a no-look pass from standout Eric Matheson plus a putback in the early minutes and reserve Alex Oknefski’s two baseline jumpers late were keys to the Elkers taking a seven-point advantage into the second quarter.
Despite failing to get off a shot on its first five possessions, and seven of the first eight because of turnovers, the Golden Tide relied on its hustle on the defensive end to close to within 16-10 midway through the period when Pennington swished a three-pointer and converted Elensky’s fast-break pass.
“Trevon probably had the best game of his varsity career,” Pentz said. “He gave us seven points off the bench. I don’t think he had very many turnovers. And he played good, solid defense. He took away the high post.”
However, the Elkers reeled off seven points before Kyle Johns spotted Elensky under the hoop to set the halftime score with 33 seconds remaining.
“When we came in at halftime, we talked about all the missed opportunities we had,” Pentz said. “We fumbled some passes in the lanes, and we missed some shots. We actually could have had the lead had we converted some of those.”
Curwensville continued to hang around through the first five minutes of the second half as Johns tallied six of his team-high 10 points and Gardner canned a jumper to trim Ridgway’s lead to 30-20.
The Golden Tide went five minutes without a point, though, and Matheson and Jesse Reynolds fueled the start of Ridgway’s game-ending run.
Matheson, a two-time All-American Awards and Engraving/D9Sports.com All-District 9 First Teamer with more than 1,000 points in his career, drove for lay-ups after two of Ridgway’s 13 steals while Reynolds earned assists on buckets by Tony Leithner and Robbie Byrd to close the third period.
Reynolds’ tip-in and Matheson’s fast-break lay-up made it 42-20 early in the fourth quarter, and both scored again in a 10-0 run that had the Elkers sitting on a 54-26 cushion with 1:46 to play.
“Not to give ourselves an excuse, but lots of times I think we’re really tired by the end of the game,” Pentz said.
Because of inexperience and low numbers, three of Curwensville’s starters are playing significant time in all junior varsity games.
The trio of Johns, Elensky and Pennington accounted for all but two of the Golden Tide’s points.
Johns also pulled down five of Curwensville’s 16 rebounds, only six fewer than Ridgway recorded.
While the Golden Tide shot only 30 percent from the floor and wound up with 35 turnovers, the Elkers heated up in the second half to finish 26-for-54 for 48.2 percent.
Reynolds topped the AML-South front-runners with 13 points. Jordan Lundin followed with 12. Matheson and Byrd chipped in 10 apiece.
Though Curwensville tumbled to 1-10 with its fifth loss in a row, Pentz was encouraged with his team’s effort.
“Hopefully, we’re progressing,” he said. “We play well enough defensively to stay in games, but we just can’t score enough points consistently.
“I wouldn’t have realized we had 35 turnovers. I thought we handled their press fairly well. We just couldn’t finish.
“The next step in helping us to become a better team is being able to finish in traffic. And right now, that’s where we’re struggling a little bit.”
The Golden Tide will visit Brockway Friday for another AML-South game.
In the junior varsity game, Gardner scored 15 points for Curwensville in a 72-34 loss.
Allegheny Mountain League South Division Standings – Ridgway 4-0, DuBois Central Catholic 3-1, Brockway 1-3, Curwensville 0-4.
RIDGWAY — 60
Jesse Reynolds 5 2-3 13, Eric Matheson 4 2-2 10, Jordan Lundin 1 0-0 2, Aaron Sorge 0 0-0 0, Josh Mitchell 3 0-0 6, Tony Leithner 1 0-0 2, Alex Oknefski 3 1-2 7, Robbie Byrd 5 0-0 10, Joe Jaques 0 0-0 0, Sam Roselli 3 0-0 6, Luke Bobby 0 0-0 0, Keith Zawatski 1 0-0 2, Tyler Stark 0 0-0 0, Kyle Kinkead 0 2-2 2, Damon Carlson 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 26 7-9 60.
CURWENSVILLE — 28
Tanner Elensky 3 3-4 9, Kyle Johns 3 4-4 10, Brett Gardner 1 0-2 2, Alex Olson 0 0-0 0, Austin Jacobson 0 0-0 0, Trevon Pennington 2 2-2 7, Nate Kurtz 0 0-0 0, Marcus Stephenson 0 0-0 0. TOTALS:S 9 9-12 28.
Three-Point Field Goals – Ridgway 1 (Reynolds); Curwensville 1 (Pennington).
SCORE BY QUARTERS
Ridgway 12 11 15 22 – 60
Curwensville 5 7 8 8 – 28
Officials – Rich Gormont and Jerry Carnicella.
