Golden Tide Defeat West Branch 55-50 In Moshannon Valley League Play

CURWENSVILLE – In early December the West Branch Area High School boys basketball squad defeated Curwensville at home, 72-57, in a Moshannon Valley League game.

On Wednesday night the Tide got a measure of revenge, defeating the Warriors 55-50 on Curwensville’s home floor.

The Warriors, with a season mark now of 4-8, are 3-2 in MVL action, while the Tide move above .500 in league play, also at 3-2.

Trailing 13-6 with 1:20 left in the opening quarter the Tide went on a 7-0 run to tie the game going into the second frame at 13-13.

Sophomore Avery Francisco had four of the seven points at the end of the first.

West Branch took its final lead of the game, 18-17, on a basket by Ayden Gutierrez at 6:15 of the second stanza.

After that, Curwensville finished the second eight minutes outscoring the Warriors 12-6 to go into intermission ahead by five points, 29-24.

Francisco ended the game with 12 points, scoring six each in the first two quarters, but also contributing heavily with a bunch of rebounds on both ends of the court before fouling out of the battle at the 2:47 mark of the fourth period.

The Golden Tide would take its largest lead of the game, 52-42, with just 2:25 remaining, on a Josh Terry basket.

West Branch ended the game on an 8-3 run, and actually pulled to within three with just under a minute left, 53-50, on a three point shot by Larry Cowder who led all scorers on the night with 20 tallies.

Barrett sealed the win for the Tide with two free throws with 29 seconds left.

Tide head coach Matt Wassil talked about two things from his team he really liked, saying “I thought our ball movement and shot selection was really good tonight. There was just a couple of shots we took that I was disappointed with, but all in all it was good night. And both teams played hard and were evenly matched.”

The Tide would keep the lead in the third quarter, mostly by two points, until the end, when Devan Barrett and Terry hit back to back buckets to stretch the lead to 40-34 at the end of third.

Curwensville had three in double figures, with Terry having 14 points and Christian Bakaysa and Zach Marshall each with 10. Of his 10 points Marshall connected for two huge treys on the night, one in the second and one in third that extended leads for the Tide.

Bakaysa was a perfect six for six from the foul line, where Curwensville ended the night 10 for 12.

Helping Cowder out for West Branch on offense was David Guerra with 12 points.

The Warriors ended the night going just six of 16 from the charity stripe

In the junior varsity game Curwensville picked up the sweep on the night, defeating the Warriors by a score of 44-33. Dakota Bloom with 13 and Christian Bakaysa with 10 led the Tide attack.

Curwensville, now 3-7 overall, will travel to Kane on Friday evening to play the Wolves. The junior varsity game will tip off at 6 pm with the varsity contest to immediately follow.

Wassil had this to say about the upcoming Friday night game at Kane, “It’s a long road trip for us on Friday so we need to get and stay focused.”

WEST BRANCH – 50

Matt Fluck 0 2-4 2, David Guerra 5 1-3 12, Ayden Gutierrez 3 0-0 6, Larry Cowder 8 3-6 20, Noah Williams 4 0-3 8, Mason Emigh 1 0-0 2, John Arnold 0 0-0 0, TOTALS – 21 6-16 50

CURWENSVILLE – 55

Devon Barrett 3 2-2 9, Christian Bakaysa 2 6-6 10, Zach Marshall 3 2-4 10, Avery Francisco 6 0-0 12, Josh Terry 7 0-0 14, Noah Von Gunden 0 0-0 0, Dakota Bloom 0 0-0 0, TOTALS – 21 10-12 55

THREE-POINTERS: WB (2): Guerra, Cowder. Cville (3): Marshall 2, Barrett.

SCORE BY QUARTERS:

WEST BRANCH 13 11 10 16 50

CURWENSVILLE 13 16 11 15 55

OFFICIALS: Bill Zupich, Rich Gormont

Golden Tide Scoreboard: