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Patriots handle Warriors

Mooney, Woolard each score 12 in South’s victory

Photo by Jordan Holland Parkersburg South’s Malaki Sylvia, right, handles the ball as Warren’s Austin Barta (12) and Clay Miller defend during a high school boys basketball game Friday at Rod Oldham Athletic Center. South won, 65-51.

PARKERSBURG — With visiting Warren threatening Friday at Rod Oldham Athletic Center, Parkersburg South got a major lift from a player off the bench.

Up four with five minutes to play, Nathan Currey knocked down three 3-pointers in a two-minute span to help the Patriots pull away for a 65-51 victory.

Parkersburg South (3-5) had stretched its lead to 11 at the beginning of the fourth quarter before a rally by the Warriors made it a four-point game. That’s when Currey got the hot hand.

“That’s Kurt Rambis,” joked South head coach Mike Fallon, referencing the former NBA player. “We call him Kurt Rambis from the 80s. The thing about Nathan, his basketball IQ is unreal. He’s one of those kids that we knew from the beginning of the year would help us a ton. He’s one who’s going to give us a ton of minutes down the road just because he’s so smart and understands the game.”

Currey finished with 11 points as did teammates Seth Fallon and Jake Dennis. Alex Woolard and Brayden Mooney led the team with 12 points apiece as South prepares for tonight’s rivalry matchup with PHS.

“I thought we made plays when we needed to,” coach Fallon said. “You can sit over here and draw 9,000 things up and whatever you want, but it comes down to kids on the floor making plays. I think that’s the biggest thing. I saw a lot of confidence in our kids in the second half.”

Woolard grabbed nine rebounds while Seth Fallon registered five assists and four steals.

Warren got a game-high 17 points from Seth Dennis, who also tallied three assists. Noah Nichols finished with 13 points, seven rebounds and three dimes while Clay Miller added eight points and seven boards.

Nichols’ layup followed by Dennis’ pull-up jumper with 5:04 left on the clock put them within striking distance at 42-38, but South outscored Warren 23-13 the rest of the way.

“We were scrambling a little bit,” said Warren coach Blane Maddox.

“When you’ve got guys down low who can score, a guy who can penetrate and find the open man — they’ve got a lot of guys who can do that and they found the hot guy.”

Turnovers plagued the Warriors, who committed 20 to South’s 10.

South quickly scored the first seven points of the game before Warren scored the next eight. The score was 10-10 after the first quarter.

“I’d have liked to bottle up the first 45 seconds of the game,” coach Fallon said.

Malaki Sylvia’s free-throw put South up 13-12 at the 6:25 mark in the second quarter. Warren then held the ball for nearly three minutes before South got the ball back and scored on a Seth Fallon jumper. Woolard added a 3 to make it 18-12 and South maintained a six-point lead into halftime, 22-16.

“They’re fast and they like to score a lot of points,” Maddox said. “We didn’t need the game in the 80s or the 90s. We just tried to spread the floor a little bit — we wanted to drag them out. They were matched up and we tried to bring their bigs out because we believed we could beat them off the dribble.

“They had good size on us. We gave them a ballgame. We’ll try to close the gap a little bit next time.”

Added coach Fallon, “They make you play a different way and you’ve got to adjust. Coach Maddox does a great job.”

South extended its lead to 10, 38-28, by the end of the third quarter.

The two teams are scheduled to meet again Feb. 12 at Warren.

“Hopefully we learned something,” said Maddox, whose Warriors dropped to 9-4 and will play host to Alexander Tuesday. “We’re going to play (South) again one more time late in the season. Hopefully we can get a 10-point turnaround when we get our home court maybe and see if we can cut this a little closer.”

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