MORRISDALE — The first time the Curwensville Golden Tide faced off with the West Branch Warriors, it was as though the Tide were shell shocked at one point, and they could never recover. Despite that, the squad battled hard and would not quit, even in losing. Fast forward to Friday night, the two would face one another once more, this time at the West Branch High School on the Warriors’ home court.
The game was much different than the last, because Curwensville would fall behind early, and would not recover, falling in a 63-49 final that was not as close as the final score indicated.
Both squads would put on a high-scoring first quarter as both teams’ leading scorers, Davis Fleming for Curwensville and Isaac Tiracorda for West Branch, got going early and often. Tiracorda would pull the better in the first quarter, helping his team get out to a two-possession lead after eight minutes. The Warriors would continue their run of scoring in the second quarter, but in a more balanced fashion with four starters getting buckets. Heading into halftime, Curwensville was still looking for momentum, staring at a 34-22 deficit.
Ultimately, the third quarter would doom Curwensville in a big way.
The Warriors were forcing turnovers, playing tough defense, and on the opposite end were putting up points at every occasion. Tiracorda would go off, as he would score 12 of his game-high 27 points in the stanza, as the Warriors pushed the score to a 54-30 gap. Tiracorda was joined in double figures as Owen Koleno bucketed 15 points, with Dylan McGonigal adding in another 10.
Both Tiracorda and Koleno surpassed the 1000 point mark for their career during the game.
As the final quarter went on, a lot of the starters for West Branch would come out and the reserves finished out the game. Curwensville would do the same, but would manage to outscore West Branch, 19-9, in the final stanza.
Fleming would finish as the high-scorer for Curwensville, bucketing 18 points. One key thing for the Tide on this night was in the second half, they were able to have Chandler English get on the court for some limited minutes. He has missed a lot of time due to injury over the course of January, but would finally manage to get healthy enough to return. In that time, he would put up six points.
Curwensville (9-8) will have back-to-back games inside Patton Hall to start the week, beginning with hosting the Keystone Panthers on Monday night. Tip-off for junior varsity is at 6 p.m. with varsity action to follow.
SCORE BY QUARTER
Curwensville 12 10 8 19 – 49
West Branch 18 16 20 9 – 63
Curwensville – 49
Tristan Best 0 0-0 0, Evan McCartney 0 0-0 0, Grant Swanson 1 0-0 3, Davis Fleming 8 0-1 18, Chandler English 3 0-0 6, Braden Holland 0 1-2 1, Dante Lezzer 0 0-0 0, Hunter Tkacik 3 1-2 8, Louie Tkacik 1 4-4 6, Parker Wood 3 1-1 7. TOTALS 19 6-10 49.
West Branch – 63
Lucas Colton 1 0-0 2, Joel Evans 2 0-0 4, Zach McGonigal 1 0-0 2, Owen Koleno 7 0-0 15, Isaac Tiracorda 13 1-1 27, Dylan McGonigal 4 0-0 10, Noah Emigh 1 0-0 2, Logan Kolp 1 0-0 2, Easton Emigh 0 0-0 0, Logan Liptak 0 0-0 0, Coby Kephart 0 0-0 0, Frank Leskovansky 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 30 1-1 63.
