RIDGWAY – Although Ridgway beat up on the Curwensville boys basketball team on January 3, at Curwensville 62-33, Tuesday night was a little bit different.
Yes, the Golden Tide lost to now 13-3 Ridgway, on the Elkers’ home floor, but three weeks made a difference in overall improvement for Curwensville.
The Elkers prevailed against a determined Tide squad, but this time by a much slimmer margin, 53-42.
Tide head coach Matt Wassil, although disappointed with the loss, found a silver lining, saying, “Of course we are never satisfied with a loss but I was pleased and satisfied with our overall play tonight. I thought we did well start to finish against a good, veteran team in Ridgway. And I can live with that.”
Devan Barrett gave the Tide its only lead, at 4-2 with 6:51 left in period number one, on back to back two pointers.
For the first eight minutes Barrett accumulated a total of 10 points that included two of his three treys on the night.
The Elkers did win the first period by a count of 18-13 and surely knew they had to be on their toes this time around.
Ridgway stretched its lead to 10 at the intermission, 33-23, by outscoring the Golden Tide 15-10 in the second stanza.
It was also a great night from beyond the arc for Curwensville as it bagged eight three pointers that helped keep the Tide in striking distance for awhile.
With the Elkers jumping out to a 36-23 margin at the start of the third period, the Golden Tide rallied behind two threes, one from Noah Von Gunden and the other from Josh Terry to cut Ridgway’s edge to just seven, 36-29, with 6:10 to go before the final eight minutes.
Curwensville found it was still just trailing by seven, 40-33, with 1:43 left in the third on a Zach Marshall basket.
Then Ridgway went on an 8-0 run from the end of the third to the start of the fourth quarter that boosted its lead to 48-33.
Unfortunately for Curwensville the closest it would come to the Elkers was at the end when Christian Bakaysa hit two free throws, setting the final at 53-42 in favor of Ridgway.
Barrett lead the Tide on offense with 14 points while Ridgway got 15 each from Neil MacDonald and Andy Brier.
Wassil ended his comments by saying, “If the kids keep playing well with this kind of effort, people will come out and see us.”
In JV action Ridgway defeated the Golden Tide by a score of 39-22.
Curwensville, now 3-10 on the season, plays at home on Friday night against Brockway. The Rovers beat the Tide earlier in January, at Brockway, 76-40.
The junior varsity game starts at 6 pm with the varsity to immediately follow.
CURWENSVILLE – 42
Devan Barrett 5 1-2 14, Josh Terry 2 0-0 6, Christian Bakaysa 2 4-5 8, Noah Von Gunden 3 1-2 9, Zach Marshall 1 0-0 2, Dakota Bloom 1 0-0 3, Cameron Moore 0 0-0 0, TOTALS – 14 6-9 42
RIDGWAY – 53
Kyle Jordan 1 -0-0 2, Ben Ames 2 0-0 4, Neil MacDonald 5 5-7 15, Andy Brier 5 5-5 15, Justin Kasmierski 3 0-1 6, Aaron Shilk 2 0-1 4, Daunte Allegretto 0 1-2 1, Josh Thorwart 2 0-0 4, Chris Wickett 0 0-0 0, Aaron Hinton 1 0-0 2, TOTALS – 21 11-16 53
THREE-POINTERS: Cville (8): Barrett 3, Terry 2, Von Gunden 2, Bloom
SCORE BY QUARTERS:
CURWENSVILLE 13 10 10 9 42
RIDGWAY 18 15 13 7 53
OFFICIALS: Barry Abbott, Dave Blair, Dave Wright
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 | 33 – 62 | 1 – 4 |
| 01/04 | JOHNSONBURG | 56 – 42 | 1 – 5 |
| 01/06 | @ Brockway | 40 – 76 | 1 – 6 |
| 01/10 | @ DuBois Central Catholic | ppd. | 1 – 6 |
| 01/11 | @ Mo Valley | ppd. | 1 – 6 |
| 01/13 | HARMONY | 70 – 45 | 2 – 6 |
| 01/17 | ELK COUNTY CATHOLIC | 32 – 78 | 2 – 7 |
| 01/18 | WEST BRANCH | 55 – 50 | 3 – 7 |
| 01/20 | @ Kane | 41 – 60 | 3 – 8 |
| 01/23 | @ DuBois Central Catholic | 56 – 66 | 3 – 9 |
| 01/24 | @ Ridgway | 42 – 53 | 3 – 10 |
| 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 | ||
| 02/13 | @ Mo Valley |