Parkersburg South defeats St. Albans, 60-48
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PARKERSBURG -- Parkersburg South's straightforward path back to Charleston almost had a detour, but key shots down the stretch shut down upset-minded St. Albans in a 60-48 Region IV Section 2 championship game on Friday night from the Rod Oldham Athletic Center.
The Patriots (18-6) welcome Cabell Midland on Wednesday to the ROAC for a Region IV co-final after CMHS fell to Huntington on Thursday night. St. Albans takes the trip down to Huntington in a bid to make it to the state tournament.
Cyrus Traugh led the way for South with a game-high 22 points, while the visiting Red Dragons had Jayden Clark and Elijah Martin chip in 13 apiece. For this game's first 12 minutes, the two sides were inseparable. With 4:18 left until halftime, South started to get some distance. Miciah Jones found Nathan Plotner (who collected 14 points and a handful of blocks on the night) for a score down low to push PSHS's lead to 24-20, as South was just getting started. A layup immediately following a steal on St. Albans' ensuing inbound pass from Austin Reeves made the lead half a dozen. A pair of free throws from Aiden Blake and Traugh a short time later gave the hosts a 30-20 edge with 3:22 until the break. However, SAHS was determined not to go down without a fight. A triple from Eli Samples and an old-fashioned 3-point play from Clark capped off a 6-0 Red Dragon run which made the score 30-26 at halftime.
As Parkersburg South made plays to keep pushing the lead up in the second half, St. Albans kept pushing back. With 6:43 left in regulation Traugh scored and was followed 30 seconds later by a pair of Reeves free throws to make it 49-41. The Dragons' final stand saw a pair of Martin baskets to make it 49-45 with 4:22 to play. South's composure kept the game from slipping away, as an 11-3 run featuring a 9 of 11 showing at the free throw line to essentially end the game in the game's final minutes. Now, PSHS turns its collective attention to the game on Wednesday while giving props to the visitors.
"They showed a bunch of composure. That was unbelievable. I've watched 800 films on (St. Albans), and they've not played like that the whole year," head coach Mike Fallon said. "I think at halftime, they were like 14 for 17, and I'm thinking back to Georgetown-Villanova back years ago when they shot like 75 percent from the floor. In the second half, it seems like we'd get up eight or nine, and then they'd hit a shot. It was amazing, and for us to weather that storm and keep our composure in a game like this, you need that sometimes. I don't think we came in too confident, but we were ready.
"I think they were ready, too. We weren't as sharp tonight, but I think we'll be fine at home on Wednesday. Being here with our crowd is a huge advantage for us. Handling adversity tonight was huge for us."
Reeves echoed those same sentiments, as he finished with 14 points of his own.
"They played really well and didn't miss very many shots," he said. "We were kind of struggling to score a little bit and couldn't really find the way to get it in the hoop. It'll be another tough game, but we love playing here. The community is always really good. The Psychos go crazy, and it's fun to play here. I thought this game would be pretty physical."
That physicality tested South down the stretch, but Traugh and company are looking ahead, one game at a time.
"We've just got to focus on one team at a time. We can't get ahead of ourselves and worry about the future," Traugh said. "We got a little bit ahead of ourselves tonight, but we started to settle down a little bit, and they did a good job holding the ball and keeping it away from us. We just came out and came together. We didn't worry about what they were doing. We were worrying about what we were doing."
Contact Josh Hughes at jhughes@newsandsentinel.com