Williamstown’s Lynken Joy, left, goes up for a basket as Ritchie County’s Alex Rogerson contests during Friday’s sectional final. (Photo by Mike Morrison)

WILLIAMSTOWN — Knowing full well it is very hard to beat any given team three times in the same season, Williamstown head coach Scott Sauro was looking for a quick start from his Yellowjackets in Friday night’s Class AA sectional final against the visiting Ritchie County Rebels.

The ‘Jackets were able to deliver in a big way as they scored the first 11 points of the game and never looked back as they rolled to a 67-45 win to claim the sectional crown.

Even though Williamstown had scored lopsided wins of 30 and 40 points over the Rebels earlier in the season they were bound and determined not to take them lightly in round number three.

“I thought we came out with a lot of energy and you kind of worry about that sometimes after we had beaten them twice,” said Sauro, whose team improves to 20-3 with the win. “To our kids’ credit they really came out with the right mindset and a lot of energy and kind of took care of business early in that game.”

Williamstown junior Jayden Bryant had the hot hand early on as he accounted for nine of the ‘Jackets 11 points with senior big man Gavin Lemley accounting for the other two.

Williamstown’s Carson Hill (44) goes up for a jumper against Ritchie County during Friday’s sectional final. (Photo by Mike Morrison)

The Rebels broke the Yellowjackets streak with a two-pointer by Isaac Hodges but Bryant answered with his second triple of the first quarter to push the WHS lead to 14-2.

Sauro has many capable scorers on his team including Bryant and he was glad to see his team get the ball to the guy with the hot hand.

“He’s the kind of guy who can get hot in a hurry and can shoot the three or go the rim and can kind of score in a lot of different ways,” said Sauro of Bryant. “When we have a guy like that get hot our guys are great about keep going back to them and they did that really well tonight.”

Hodges knocked down a 3-ball of his own before the ‘Jackets closed the first quarter with a triple by junior Cruz Isaly and two-pointers by seniors Louis Goodnow and Payton Bunch to claim a 21-5 lead at the end of one quarter of play.

The Rebels got a pair of 3-pointers from Bodhi Utter in the second quarter and cut the lead to 14 at one point before the ‘Jackets closed out the opening half with a two-pointer by Tyler Keiser and another 3-pointer by Isaly to extend their advantage to 38-19 at the break.

Williamstown’s Cruz Isaly (24) attacks the basket as Ritchie County’s Garrett Flesher (15) defends during Friday’s sectional final. (Photo by Mike Morrison)

Williamstown opened the second half clicking on all cylinders much like they did to open the game as they opened the third quarter on a 9-2 run to push their lead to 47-21.

Lynken Joy’s put-back bucket for two opened the second half and Isaly followed by coming up with a steal and an easy bucket in transition.

Junior Parker Schramm got in on the act as he converted an old-fashioned three-point play and followed that up by driving the baseline and finishing with a reverse two-handed dunk to blow things wide open.

Ritchie County made a valiant effort the rest of the way and actually trimmed the lead back to 16 at one point but it would be much too little too late.

Bryant led all scorers with 19 points while Joy added 12 and a team-high five rebounds.

Isaly finished with eight while filling up his stat sheet with five assists, four steals and three rebounds.

“He’s an energy guy defensively and very athletic and he is kind of the engine that makes us go,” said Sauro of Isaly. “He does a lot of different things for us that doesn’t necessarily show and he just wants to win.”

Hodges led the way for the Rebels (9-14) with 15 points and nine boards while Utter added 14 including four from behind the arc.

Both teams will move onto regional play Wednesday with Ritchie County hitting the road to Wheeling Central Catholic while the ‘Jackets remain home to host St. Marys in the regional co-final.

“We had a great crowd tonight and I think we will have an even bigger crowd for St. Marys on Wednesday night,” said Sauro. “That’s a rivalry game and they are going to be super prepared to come in here and try to upset us and our job will be to play with great energy and with great effort and let the chips fall where they may.”