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Catholic cruises past St. Marys, 81-43

By Kerry Patrick 4 min read

PARKERSBURG - Next man up for Parkersburg Catholic boys basketball consisted of quite a lineup.

Branson Lott and Preston Randolph carried the scoring load throughout the first half during the Crusaders' season-opener against St. Marys and Leonardo DeAngelo took his turn in the second half during Tuesday's 81-43 win over the Blue Devils.

PCHS took a 40-27 lead into halftime behind 17 points from Lott and another eight points from Randolph. DeAngelo found his stroke after intermission, knocking down three 3-pointers as part of a 13-point second half effort.

After a brief postgame talk with his players, PCHS coach Jim McLean exited the locker room and let his players savor their performance -- for 24 hours at the very least.

"What I really liked is that we played for each other and together," McLean said. "It didn't matter who was getting the points or rebounds, everybody was putting in the effort."

Lott finished with 20 points, while DeAngelo tossed in 18. A total of four PCHS players scored in double figures, including Randolph with 13 points and Carter Nelson with 11.

"The beauty of this team -- you can get a guy like Branson to come out and put them up then Leonardo can do the same thing," McLean said. "There are five, six, seven guys on the team who can score the ball. It's a hard guard for other teams."

PCHS led from start to finish after racing out to a 9-1 lead. St. Marys hung tough due in large part to drawing fouls and getting to the free-throw line. In the first quarter alone, the Blue Devils made 13 trips to the foul stripe and stayed within 18-13 with less than two minutes remaining in the opening period.

A putback by Randolph in the final minute capped a 6-0 run which extended the PCHS lead to 24-13 after one period.

Preston Lawhon's two free throws at the 4:27 mark of the second quarter accounted for part of his team-high 20 points and sliced the gap to 26-19.

The margin hovered at nine points when Nelson stepped up in the final 30 seconds of the first half with a putback followed by a pull-up jumper which gave PCHS a 40-27 advantage at halftime.

PCHS pulled back on the man defense and went zone for the start of the third quarter to cover for any foul issues. The Crusaders maintained a 14-point lead into the final two minutes of the third period.

"The biggest thing for us tonight was not letting them get second chance points and offensive rebounds, and I thought we did a pretty good job of that in the second half," McLean said.

A pair of free throws by Lott followed by a pair of bucklets from DeAngelo, including a 3-pointer just before the buzzer started a 20-0 run which carried over into the first three minutes of the fourth quarter. The benches began to clear with St. Marys trailing 70-36.

"Parkersburg Catholic is pretty good," St. Marys coach Larry Johnson said. "They shot the ball well and we didn't. We had 22 turnovers and most were unforced. Didn't take very good care of the ball.

"It will take some time for us, and that's what I told the kids. This was the first game of the season. Now we know what we need to work on. In the first half, we put a lot of pressure on the defense then we stopped doing that."

While teams like PCHS were competing in fall league, St. Marys did not participate. Not helping matters, members from the football team making the transition to the basketball team were in a state of flux waiting for a decision to come down from the supreme court and trying to prepare for a postseason which never happened.

In other words, the Blue Devils' basketball team has been playing catch-up.

"We are better than what we showed today," Johnson continued. "Some of the stuff are easy fixes. Some stuff, we need to go back and regroup.

"We will get better, We will be OK."

Contact Kerry Patrick at kpatrick@newsandsentinel.com

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