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Golden Eagles advance past South Gallia

Belpre’s Mythius Houghton (21) makes a move with the ball as South Gallia’s Caleb Henry looks on during a sectional semifinal boys basketball game Wednesday night in Pomeroy, Ohio. Photo by Ron Johnston.

POMEROY, Ohio — Chad Williams tweaked Belpre High’s line-up a little bit.

The third-year BHS boys’ basketball coach inserted 6-foot-4 sophomore Jerimiah Stitt into the starting five and the move paid off dividends as the Golden Eagles defeated South Gallia, 59-45, in a Division IV sectional semifinal at Meigs High Wednesday night.

“Jerimiah hadn’t started all year for us, but that’s one thing I wanted to do, switch it up. He scored and he helped on rebounds with his length.”

Stitt scored eight of his 10 points in the first quarter to help Belpre stake itself to a 20-11 advantage.

“I don’t think South Gallia expected that,” Williams said. “And our 1-3-1 (defense) hurt the Rebels a little bit.”

Deijon Bedgood scored a game-high 19 points, 15 in the second half, and grabbed eight rebounds to lead the seventh-seeded Eagles (9-14), who advance to play second-seeded Trimble in a sectional final at Meigs Wednesday at 6:15 p.m.

Bailey Sprague added 11 points and five caroms, while Jessie Collins and Nate Godfrey hauled in seven and six misses, respectively. Mythius Houghton dished our four assists.

“They were a quiet 19,” said Williams of Bedgood’s point total. “We needed balance. A couple of games we’ve won this season, we had Mythius with 25 and Deijon with 27 or vice versa.”

South Gallia (3-19) was led by 6-3 freshman Austin Day’s 12 points, 11 in the first half. Nick Klaiber also had 12 markers, all in the fourth quarter. Caleb Henry netted nine, and Curtis Haner had seven.

The 10th-seeded Rebels were 0-3 against the Golden Eagles this season.

“You can’t underestimate (South Gallia),” Bedgood said. “They’re a good team. They’ve definitely gotten better.”

Belpre had the hot hand in the opening period, making eight of 13 shot attempts. Stitt had four field goals, while Bedgood and Sprague had two apiece.

South Gallia’s only lead of the contest was early on, 3-2, when Eli Ellis drained a triple. After that, it was all Golden Eagles.

In the second period, Houghton’s two freebies at the 2:44 mark gave BHS a 15-point cushion, 29-14.

At the break, the Eagles led 31-21.

Bedgood scored six points in the third quarter as Belpre stretched its lead to 41-26. The Eagles also limited South Gallia to just five points in the stanza.

In the fourth quarter, Klaiber (12) and Haney (7) combined to score all of the Rebels points. But Bedgood was also hot, tallying nine of his team’s 20 points.

“We’ve played well the latter part of the season,” Williams said. “No one remembers what we did earlier this year. It’s tournament time and it starts over. We just played these guys (Rebels) last week and won in double overtime. Right now, we’ve won five out of the last six games and that’s got our program going in the right direction.

“It’s nice to have this win and move to 1-0 in the tournament. I’m just proud of the kids. They played hard.”

During regular season play, Belpre and Trimble split with each school winning on its home floor.

“It should be a good game,” Bedgood said. “We’ve just got to practice and get ready for them.”

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