Parkersburg’s Austin Fleming (3) celebrates after a basket during a high school boys basketball game against Cabell Midland Wednesday at PHS Memorial Fieldhouse. Also pictured from PHS are, from left to right, Nate Rodriguez (25), Andrew Stalnaker (20), Quayvon Cyrus (1) and Matthew Stalnaker (12). (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

PARKERSBURG — Dominic Schmidt went for game-highs of 28 points and nine assists here Wednesday night inside Memorial Fieldhouse to help lead Cabell Midland to a 74-65 Mountain State Athletic Conference triumph against Parkersburg.

PHS, which scored the first six points of the game only to trail 13-10 after one, found itself behind 34-23 at the break. After exploding for 23 points in the third quarter, PHS managed to even the affair at 46 going into the final eight minutes. However, the Knights drained five of their first six 3s, including one each from Schmidt and Jack Eastone just 21 ticks apart, to open the fourth as the Big Reds never got back within one possession.

Eastone knocked down four 3s and finished with 18 points. Schmidt and Ethan Bohm, who chipped in 14 markers and nine boards, canned a trio of trifectas apiece as head coach JJ Martin’s squad hit 11 of 25 from downtown and shot 46.4% (26 of 56) for the game. Isaac Petitt chipped in eight points and had two blocks. Teammate Aiden Cottrell finished with six counters and a game-high baker’s dozen rebounds.

The Big Reds of head man Bryan Crislip, who dropped to 2-7 and returns to action Tuesday at Ripley, were led by 21 points from Nate Rodriguez. Austin Fleming double-doubled with 16 points and 10 rebounds while adding a game-high four steals. Quayvon Cyrus and Casey Stanley, who had a quartet of dimes, added eight points apiece with David Parsons going for seven and Andrew Stalnaker five.

“We wanted to make Schmidt work and I thought our kids did a really good job, but he’s a good ball player and he made plays,” admitted Crislip, whose squad won the turnover battle, 12-10, but were outrebounded 42-35. “I don’t know how he does it. Our kids did all that work to get back and tie it and that’s kind of deflating when you get it tied, use all this energy and they get six in a matter of seconds.

“I keep saying it’s a process over the results, keep working hard and 2-7 is tough for anybody to keep grinding, but I am really proud of our kids. They are playing hard and doing everything we’ve asked.”

PHS was able to take its first lead of the second half by going on a 17-5 spurt to open the third. Rodriguez had two of his five treys in the run. Stanley opened the stanza with a putback and Fleming had the other nine markers. In fact, Fleming’s three-point play following a putback and then his two made charity stripe tosses at the 2:32 mark put the Class AAAA No. 9 Knights (4-1) down 40-39. Cyrus managed a putback just before the buzzer to square it.

“I thought we did a good job in the first half. Coming out in the third quarter I think they scored almost all their points on second chances,” admitted coach Martin, whose team plays Tuesday at current No. 10 South Charleston. “We told them coming into the game if we didn’t rebound they would beat us. I thought we did a good job until the third quarter and they did a really good job of coming out and playing yard.

“In the fourth, I think we were able to get back to what we were doing in the first half, which was one shot and done. We had some guys step up. Everybody we play we know they are going to guard Dominic really tight so we got to have other guys step up and hit shots. We just got to get better. I don’t like our man-to-man defense right now. We don’t talk very well and our rotations are kind of slow. We know we got to get better.”

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com