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Creek downs Brooke

Indian Creek's Andy Waggoner is surrounded by Brooke's Evan Cuomo (5) and Joey Georgy Friday (Mike Mathison).

WINTERSVILLE — Indian Creek finished its regular season all square thanks to a 51-40 victory over Brook Friday in OVAC boys basketball tournament pool play.

The 11-11 Redskins, winners of three straight, now are idle until Feb. 28 when they travel to McConnelsville Morgan for a Division II sectional game. With the loss, Brooke falls to 2-18.

“That’s a credit to our three seniors (Greg Wade, Austin Freshwater and Donald Brown) and how hard they’ve worked all year,” veteran Creek coach Joe Dunlevy said when discussing the .500 campaign. “Early on, we talked about how we’re going to get better. Then we kept getting better and better as the season went along. We got better because of how hard our seniors and the rest of our guys have worked.”

Creek, which topped Brooke 48-43 back in December, took control early, scoring the game’s first nine points. Nick Crawford drained a three to get the Redskins rolling. Derrick Eakle, Austin Yaich and Freshwater added hoops during the run.

The Bruins didn’t get on the board until the 1:55 mark of the opening period when Evan Cuomo knocked down a jumper. The hosts led 16-2 heading into the second quarter.

“That’s kind of been the story of our season, we just can’t be consistent for four quarters,” first-year Brooke coach Cam Koehler stated. “We have usually have three pretty solid quarters and one where we just don’t show up. That’s one thing we have been battling all year.

“We just can’t seem to get over the hump. In the two wins we have, we did play four solid quarters. Usually it’s the third or fourth quarters, tonight was the first time I saw it in the first. Inconsistency across four quarters has killed us in just about every game.”

Creek led 27-16 at the half and 39-22 after three.

“We’re being more selective with our shots, which we probably weren’t doing early in the season,” Dunlevy stressed. “We take very few bad shots. I think that really contributed to our offensive efficiency at the beginning of the game.”

In addition to being efficient, Creek also benefitted from a balanced scoring attack. Wade and Crawford each scored 11 to pace the winners. Crawford connected three times from behind the arc. Yaich contributed nine while Freshwater and Eakle had eight apiece.

As is usually the case, Creek also got it done on the defensive end of the floor, forcing Brooke into numerous bad shots.

“Everyone has something they hang their hat on and that something for us is defense,” Dunlevy noted. “We’re able to do that because of the physical and mental toughness of our kids. They understand the game a lot better now than they did at the beginning of the year especially as far as what they’re doing defensively and getting to the right spots.

“I couldn’t ask for a better group of kids or a better group of seniors to coach. It’s been a joy all year.”

Three players, Chris Yachini, Cuomo and Justin Pennybacker, had 10 points each for Brooke. Pennybacker drained a pair of triples.

The Bruins have two regular season games left, No. 1-ranked University visits Wellsburg Tuesday before Preston County invades on Thursday, before launching Class AAA sectional play.

“Looking into the future — our section is wide open,” Koehler said. “With Wheeling Park, John Marshall and us, we’re all pretty competitive with each other. We haven’t shown are best game yet against Park. We played JM fairly well the first time and ended up beating them the second time.

“It’s frustrating seeing a loss like this one tonight but we have two games left to bounce back. We need to finish hard. We’ll be OK as long as we keep competing, keep progressing and not back down.”

Dunlevy plans to give his team a “couple of days off before we start getting ready for Morgan.”

Creek is seeded 12th in the Division II sectional while Morgan earned the five seed.

“I’ll be working over the weekend,” he said. “”We’ll try to develop a good game plan, go out there and take a shot.”

Indian Creek 51, Brooke 40

Brooke 2 14 6 18–40

Creek 16 11 12 12–51

BROOKE (2-18): Shelton 0 0-0 0; Yachini 5 0-2 10; Cuomo 4 2-4 10; Rasz 0 0-0 0; Spitak 2 0-0 4; Leonard 3 0-2 6; Pennybacker 4 0-1 10; Pauls 0 0-0 0; Georgy 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 18 2-9 40. 3-pointers: Pennybacker 2; Rebounds: 19 (Yachini 8); Turnovers: 8.

INDIAN CREEK (11-11): Wade 2 7-10 11; Norris 0 0-0 0; Freshwater 3 2-2 8; Eakle 3 2-2 8; Yaich 4 1-3 9; Crawford 3 2-2 11; Fante 0 0-0 0; Waggoner 1 2-3 4. TOTALS: 16 16-22 51. 3-pointers: Crawford 3; Rebounds: 28 (Wade, Yaich 6 each); Turnovers: 14.

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