CURWENSVILLE – With a vast disparity in one critical category, the Curwensville boys basketball team picked up its first win of the 2016-17 campaign Wednesday night with a 60-54 victory over visiting Glendale in Moshannon Valley League (MVL) play at Patton Hall in Curwensville.
That vast disparity was at the free throw line were the Golden Tide shot 48 free throws to just four for the Vikings.
Curwensville hit 28 from the line while the Vikings hit two.
In fact, Glendale made 25 field goals to just 14 for Curwensville.
Curwensville went on an 11-0 run to end the first quarter out in front of the Vikings 15-4 as Devon Barrett scored five points for the Tide.
The score was tied 4-4 with 3:29 left in the first, thanks to two baskets by Colton Leyo, but that was the closest Glendale would ever come to taking the lead.
Glendale outscored Curwensville 20-18 in the second eight minutes to cut the margin to 33-24 at the break.
Making 16 of 21 free throws in the first half enabled the Golden Tide to keep its lead over the Vikings.
Curwensville did take a 14 point lead at the 2:08 mark of the third period thanks to a bucket by senior Cameron Moore. That gave the Tide a 33-19 edge at that time but Glendale would end the third on a 5-0 run to cut the lead to 33-24 heading into the final eight minutes of action.
The biggest lead for Curwensville was 50-35 on a field goal by Dakota Bloom with 5:47 to play.
Glendale, however, was not done cutting the Tide lead to 58-54 with just seven seconds to play.
But Tide senior Zach Marshall sealed the victory with, you guessed it, two free throws with just :04.9 seconds remaining.
The Tide had three players in double figures with Marshall and Christian Bakaysa each having 13 points while Barrett added 10.
Curwensville was nine of 18 from the charity stripe in the fourth quarter.
Bailey Sinclair of Glendale, now 1-4, had game high honors with 15 points.
Tide head coach Matt Wassil spoke afterwards, saying, “We made it a lot harder than we had to tonight but it was nice to get that first win. And I think we learned how to play with a lead for the first time this year. Every possession mattered to maintain our lead and that was important.”
Wassil finished by commenting, “We were more aggressive tonight and we had a plan that we wanted to penetrate and get to the basket. I thought we could get an advantage underneath and that seemed to work out for us.”
Glendale won a 45-41 overtime thriller over the Tide in the junior varsity contest.
Curwensville, 1-3 overall and 1-2 in MVL action, doesn’t play again until Tuesday, January 3 when it hosts Ridgway. The junior varsity game starts at 6 pm with the varsity to immediately follow.
SCORE BY QUARTERS:
GLENDALE 4 20 9 21 54
CURWENSVILLE 15 18 11 16 60
GLENDALE – 54
Cody Hepfer 0 0-0 0, Bailey Sinclair 7 1-2 15, Ethan Garzia 0 0-0 0, Colton Leyo 4 0-0 8, Nick Blake 2 0-0 4, Jacob Jasper 3 0-0 7, Josh Potutsching 3 0-0 6, Jared Schultz 2 0-0 5, Shane McMurray 4 0-0 8, Hunter Sahm 0 0-0 0, J. J. Kitko 0 1-2 1, TOTALS – 25 2-4 54
CURWENSVILLE – 60
Devon Barrett 2 6-9 10, Noah Von Gunden 2 4-10 9, Zach Marshall 4 3-4 13, Christian Bakaysa 3 7-11 13, Avery Francisco 1 4-8 6, Dakota Bloom 1 1-2 3, Cameron Moore 1 3-4 6, TOTALS – 14 28-48 60
THREE-POINTERS: Jasper, Schultz, Marshall 2, Von Gunden, Moore
OFFICIALS: Bill Zupich, Rich Gormont
Golden Tide Scoreboard:
| Date | Opponent | Score | Record |
| 12/09 | CLEARFIELD | 38 – 81 | 0 – 1 |
| 12/12 | @ West Branch | 57 – 72 | 0 – 2 |
| 12/16 | MO VALLEY | 25 – 57 | 0 – 3 |
| 12/21 | GLENDALE | 60 – 54 | 1 – 3 |
| 01/03 | RIDGWAY | ||
| 01/04 | JOHNSONBURG | ||
| 01/06 | @ Brockway | ||
| 01/10 | @ DuBois Central | ||
| 01/11 | @ Mo Valley | ||
| 01/13 | HARMONY | ||
| 01/17 | ELK COUNTY CATHOLIC | ||
| 01/18 | WEST BRANCH | ||
| 01/20 | @ Kane | ||
| 01/24 | @ Ridgway | ||
| 01/27 | BROCKWAY | ||
| 01/30 | KANE | ||
| 01/31 | @ Harmony | ||
| 02/01 | @ Glendale | ||
| 02/03 | @ Johnsonburg | ||
| 02/06 | @ Clearfield | ||
| 02/07 | DUBOIS CENTRAL | ||
| 02/10 | SHEFFIELD |