CURWENSVILLE – A Monday night victory over visiting Moshannon Valley, 60-53, has the Curwensville Area High School boys basketball still perfect at 5-0 in the Moshannon Valley League.
The Golden Tide completed the season sweep of the Black Knight‘s after having won at Moshannon Valley back in mid-December, 61-49.
On this night, even though Curwensville led from the start and was never even tied by the Black Knights, that doesn’t mean it was easy; because it was not.
Coach Matt Wassil of Curwensville had a few concerns about his team afterwards, saying, “This was not our best effort of the season tonight. I know that Moshannon Valley played well, but we had a lot of mental breakdowns out there and I thought we took shots that were just not good shots at times.”
The Tide did have double digit margins a lot during the contest but Moshannon Valley did cut the lead to three and four points a few times, making the Golden Tide faithful a little edgy at Patton Hall in Curwensville.
For Curwensville (7-5) it was Josh Terry with 21 points, followed closely by fellow senior Devon Barrett with 20 that did the trick for the victory.
In the first quarter, Curwensville took an 11-3 lead before the Black Knights scored the final five points to make it 11-8 Tide going into the second stanza.
Curwensville would extend its lead to 27-21 at the intermission thanks to nine second quarter tallies by Barrett. In fact Barrett scored nine of the first 10 points the Tide added to the scoreboard in the second.
The Knights picked up the first basket of the second half cutting the Tide margin to 27-24 before Barrett, with a three-pointer, and Christian Bakaysa stretched the lead to nine at 32-23.
With five straight points by Moshannon Valley’s Joe Bacher, the visitors form Houtzdale made it a four point game, trailing just 32-28 halfway through the third quarter.
However, at the end of the third, Curwensville was still able to take an eight point bulge, 39-31, going into the final eight minutes.
And in the final act, the Tide took a whopping 20 free throws and connected on 13 of them that enabled the victory.
Terry, in the fourth alone, was eight for 11 from the line for Curwensville.
The closest Moshannon Valley would come in the fourth was at the 1:41 point when it trailed again by just four,52-48, before the Tide pulled away one more time.
The Tide’s last eight points came from the charity line to ice the battle.
The Black Knight’s were paced by 17 from junior Alex Kitko and 11 by senior Ethan Reed for Coach Derrick Eckenrode’s squad.
Wassil then added, “We need to be better next time out. We rushed too many shots and missed some easy ones on the inside, but will work on that and get better.”
The Black Knights dropped to 2-12 on the year and 1-4 in Moshannon Valley League play.
Curwensville also won the junior varsity game, beating Moshannon Valley by a score of 30-9. High scorer for Curwensville was Caleb Nance with 10 points.
The Golden Tide are home again on Tuesday night against Ridgway, who beat Curwensville on January 3, on the Elkers’ court, 52-32.
Junior varsity action tips off at 6 pm with the varsity game to immediately follow.
MOSHANNON VALLEY – 53
Jacob Matchock 2 0-2 4, Joe Bacher 3 1-1 7, Ben Murawski 3 0-2 7, Alex Kitko 5 8-9 21, Ethan
Reed 5 0-0 11, Brent Butler 1 0-0 3, Brett Sherkel 0 0-0 0
TOTALS – 19 9-14 53
CURWENSVILLE – 60
Josh Terry 6 9-13 21, Devon Barrett 7 3-5 20, Noah Von Gunden 1 2-2 4, Christian Bakaysa 2 1-2 5, Avery Francisco 4 0-3 8, Nick Stewart 1 0-0 2
TOTALS – 21 15-25 60
SCORE BY QUARTERS:
MOSHANNON VALLEY 8 13 10 22 53
CURWENSVILLE 11 16 12 21 60
THREE-POINTERS: MOSHANNON VALLEY – 6 Kitko 3, Murawski, Reed, Butler CURWENSVILLE – 3 Barrett 3
OFFICIALS: Dave Gardner, Bill Zupich
Golden Tide Scoreboard:
| Date | Opponent | Score | Record |
| 12/08 | @ Clearfield | 52 – 54 | 0 – 1 |
| 12/11 | WEST BRANCH | 57 – 54 ot | 1 – 1 |
| 12/15 | @ Mo Valley | 61 – 49 | 2 – 1 |
| 12/20 | GLENDALE | 82 – 47 | 3 – 1 |
| 12/28 | @ Freeport Tourney | ||
| 12/28 | vs. Freeport | 54 – 85 | 3 – 2 |
| 12/29 | vs. Mercyhurst Prep | 32 – 46 | 3 – 3 |
| 01/03 | @ Ridgway | 32 – 52 | 3 – 4 |
| 01/05 | BROCKWAY | ppd. | 3 – 4 |
| 01/09 | DUBOIS CENTRAL CATH | 58 – 49 | 4 – 4 |
| 01/11 | HARMONY | 90 – 74 | 5 – 4 |
| 01/12 | BROCKWAY | ppd. | 5 – 4 |
| 01/16 | @ Elk County Catholic | 46 – 78 | 5 – 5 |
| 01/19 | KANE | 58 – 45 | 6 – 5 |
| 01/22 | MO VALLEY | 60 – 53 | 7 – 5 |
| 01/23 | RIDGWAY | ||
| 01/26 | @ Brockway | ||
| 01/30 | BROCKWAY | ||
| 01/31 | @ Glendale | ||
| 02/02 | JOHNSONBURG | ||
| 02/06 | @ DuBois Central Catholic | ||
| 02/07 | @ West Branch | ||
| 02/09 | @ Sheffield | ||
| 02/12 | CLEARFIELD | ||
| 02/14 | @ Harmony |
