South drops nail-biter to Spring Mills, 66-64
- Parkersburg South’s Harry Silvis, left, handles the ball as Spring Mills’ Caleb Thomas defends during Friday’s game at the Rod Oldham Athletic Center. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)
- Parkersburg South’s Navi Hewitt, right, goes up for a jumper as Spring Mills’ Xavier Anderson contests during Friday’s game at the Rod Oldham Athletic Center. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)
- Parkersburg South’s Taj Joyce goes up for a shot as Spring Mills’ Akwasi Opoku-Achampong contests during Friday’s game at the Rod Oldham Athletic Center. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)
- Spring Mills’ Caleb Thomas (3) throws down a dunk during Friday’s game against Parkersburg South at the Rod Oldham Athletic Center. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)
- Warren’s Julian Stadelman handles the ball as Williamstown’s Cruz Isaly defends during Friday’s game in Vincent. Warren won, 67-46. (Photo by Jordan Holland)
- Williamstown’s Parker Schramm looks to pass while Warren’s Nick Cressey defends during Friday’s game in Vincent. Warren won, 67-46. (Photo by Jordan Holland)

Parkersburg South’s Harry Silvis, left, handles the ball as Spring Mills’ Caleb Thomas defends during Friday’s game at the Rod Oldham Athletic Center. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)
PARKERSBURG – Parkersburg South rallied from 13 down in the third quarter here Friday night against Spring Mills inside the Rod Oldham Athletic Center and had a couple of late chances to pull off an upset, but the No. 9 Patriots came up just short against the top-ranked Cardinals, 66-64.
Spring Mills, which lost to Morgantown in last year’s state championship game and was without head coach Luke Samples, was led by Caleb Thomas’ triple-double that featured 16 points as well as game-highs of 11 rebounds and 12 assists.
The 2-1 Patriots of head man Mike Fallon closed the deficit to 65-61 with 1:18 to play following a pair of Navi Hewitt free throws. In the final 41.6 seconds, the Cardinals missed 5 of 6 charity stripe tosses as the Patriots cut it to 65-64 with 29 seconds remaining following a Taj Joyce trifecta.
“The good thing was we didn’t play great,” admitted coach Fallon, who got 18 points from Hewitt along with 16 markers apiece from Joyce and Harry Silvis. “Coming in probably nobody gave us a chance to beat them anyway, but we know as a group where we are at and what’s going on with our team.
“We’ll be there at the end. We’ll give ourselves a chance at the end. We get to Charleston, hopefully, we got a lot of stuff between now and then. That’s what I told our kids. We can’t talk and worry about seeing them. We got to worry about what’s between now and March and just get ourselves better and all that other stuff will take care of itself.”

Parkersburg South’s Navi Hewitt, right, goes up for a jumper as Spring Mills’ Xavier Anderson contests during Friday’s game at the Rod Oldham Athletic Center. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)
The Patriots forced seven turnovers in the first quarter, but the visitors committed just five the rest of the way.
Silvis had one of his seven assists to end the opening stanza when Cameron Fallon drained a 3 to beat the horn and give the hosts an 18-16 cushion.
Parkersburg South’s Matthew Mullen, who had five points and six boards, scored inside with 40 seconds left in the first half to give the hosts a 31-28 advantage. However, Loakkhae Uth-Smith, who led all scorers with 26, canned one of his six treys just 13 seconds later thanks to a Max Anderson dime to even it.
Spring Mills assistant coach Shannon Layton’s squad got the ball back following a 5-second call with 8.9 ticks remaining and Thomas proceeded to drain a 3 for a 34-31 intermission advantage.
The Cardinals had three consecutive trifectas in the third, which included two from Uth-Smith, as the Patriots fell behind 47-34 and still trailed by a baker’s dozen at 54-41 following an Opoku-Achampong triple.

Parkersburg South’s Taj Joyce goes up for a shot as Spring Mills’ Akwasi Opoku-Achampong contests during Friday’s game at the Rod Oldham Athletic Center. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)
Coach Fallon’s squad, who welcomes in Linsly on Monday, got a deuce from Silvis and another Fallon 3 to close it to eight entering the fourth.
“I thought the third quarter we didn’t do what we had talked about about hedging hard on screens and switching and getting underneath,” added coach Fallon, whose team held a 27-19 advantage on the glass. “We got caught four times on those and they hit four 3s.
“We got down 13 and then we just kept digging and fighting and clawing, and getting our way back in. This group believes and they like each other. We’re pretty darn good, too. That’s all you can ask for against them.”
Opoku-Achampong had a dozen counters thanks to his quartet of 3s. Teammate Xavier Anderson finished with eight points and had two steals.
“We knew we were going to come into a hostile environment and we talked about it,” admitted coach Layton. “I always told these kids to stick together, stay with one another, try to avoid all the contact with the crowd. Just stay with each other because it got hostile. I called a couple timeouts just to reassure them ‘hey, man, this is what it’s all about right here, you know, keep your composure, do what we do and trust in we prepared you for this game.’

Spring Mills’ Caleb Thomas (3) throws down a dunk during Friday’s game against Parkersburg South at the Rod Oldham Athletic Center. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)
“It showed that they could do it. They’ve been here before and we got a lot of upperclassmen. They’ve been in this type of environment before and they definitely came together and got the job done. We always talk about family here. We got each other. Caleb took an elbow to the face. We had two kids foul out and everyone kept their spirits up and cheered on the next man up, and that’s what it’s all about. That’s how you win the big games.”
Spring Mills finished 27 of 48 (56.3%) from the floor compared to the Patriots’ 21 of 44 (47.7%). The Cardinals also went 11 of 28 from downtown on a night went South made 9 of 15 from beyond the arc.
Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com