Weir High falls to Big Red in the Watt/Nese Classic
Another Jones double-double helps propel Steubenville past Weir High
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STEUBENVILLE -- Coming off a tough loss less than 24 hours earlier and knowing it performed poorly the last time it played on back-to-back nights, the Steubenville boys basketball team put a lot of emphasis on getting off to a good start Thursday.
After visiting Weir High sunk the first basket, Big Red got rolling in a hurry and never looked back to take the nightcap of the final day of the Chuck Watt/John Nese Holiday Classic, 68-42, putting a bow on the annual two-day event to send the Big Red faithful home with something to cheer about.
"It was really important, we stressed that," veteran Big Red head coach Mike Haney said of the start. "The last time we played back-to-back days, we did not come out and play very well the second day. We talked about coming out ready to go right from the start.
"We got a couple steals, made a couple shots and had a nice run. It just seemed like we caught fire and everything got better, defense, rotations. Once one fell, we got some confidence. We missed a layup right at the beginning of the game then made most of them inside the rest of the game."
Brenton "Inky" Jones, who was coming off winning game MVP honors in Wednesday's loss to East Liverpool, was a beast once again, leading all players with 20 points and 13 rebounds, while tying for a team-high with four assists.
He scored six-straight points in the middle of a 14-0 Big Red (6-4) run that spanned from the end of the first quarter into the mid portion of the second and allowed the hosts to break the game open to a 20-point lead, netting 18 of his points and pulling down 10 boards in the opening half.
"He's really coming along strong," Haney said of Jones. "He's just had an unbelievable number of rebounds, and ball is going in for him. Defensively, too, he changes guys' shots when he runs out and he is just playing really good, all-around basketball right now."
Ivan Buggs, who was selected as Thursday's MVP for Haney's club, was able to come through in the rare moments the Red Riders (2-4) had an answer for Jones, finishing with 13 points, two assists and six rebounds.
"Buggs had a really good game, he had a really good third quarter," Haney said. "He's been playing well and doing everything right, (scoring) has been going up and down. Now he hit a couple and hopefully keeps it going."
Junior sharpshooter Phaeton Hill nailed three triples and finished with 14 points, 13 of which were in the opening half to help Big Red amass a 46-17 lead at the break. Kyjhuan Hopkins netted eight off the Steubenville bench.
The Red Riders' Anthony Zegula was named his team's MVP. He nailed the first shot of the game, his first of three makes from beyond the arc, and led the Riders with 11 points.
After that initial shot swished the net, things went downhill in a hurry for Weir and Big Red responded with back-to-back treys by Hill and Ty Pierce enroute to a 12-3 run, before the start of the aforementioned scoring spurt made it a 22-10 game after one.
"They out-toughed us, they did everything great fundamentally," Weir High head coach Anthony Santangelo said of Big Red. "It starts with toughness and being a team. They got after it, they were tougher than us, they hit the boards harder than us. They did everything harder than we did.
"It is a teaching point to get back to the fundamentals. We've got to find someone in that locker room to lead this team. It might be senior, a young guy ... we need to find some leadership somehow, someway."
Things went from bad to worse in the second for Santangelo's team, as Big Red put an explanation point on the first half with a late Hill triple and a quick turnover right after that immediately led to a Jones layup, adding five points in the final 10 seconds of the half to what was already a 24-point lead.
That turnover was one of 10 the Riders committed in the half, while Big Red did not commit any in the opening 16 minutes. The hosts also held a big advantage off the glass at the break and finished with a 30-18 edge, including 16-7 off the offensive glass.
"It was every aspect of the game," Santangelo said. "It was good (early) then went south in a hurry. Offensive rebounding killed us, inside the paint killed us. We did our job in the zone, then couldn't get rebounds. We've got to start from the foundation again and rise back up."
Weir High made some substitutions in the third and started hitting some treys, as Grant Wilharm, Josh Boffman, Tyler Kelly and G Cross nailed triples on a 14-4 Red Rider run in the third, but Weir never got the deficit below 20 the rest of the way.
"We told them at halftime to forget about the score, just chip away," Santangelo said. "We brought some young dudes in that hadn't played much varsity and they showed they wanted it. That is something positive."
The win for Big Red was the first for a Steubenville varsity team in the two-day event it hosts each year, as the boys dropped the Wednesday nightcap to high-powered East Liverpool and the girls fell to Oak Glen and Catholic Central in their two contests.
"It's always nice," Haney said of winning during the event. "We're here to honor two great coaches. It was a nice couple of days.
"It seemed like everything went smooth. It is always a positive."
UP NEXT
Weir High: Is set to host Indian Creek, whom the Red Riders topped in a close game last week on the road, on Tuesday night.
Big Red: Is also set to return to action on Tuesday following the changing of the calendars with a trip to Wheeling Park.
Big Red 68, Weir High 42
Weir High 10-7-19-6 - 42
Big Red 22-24-13-9 - 68
WEIR HIGH (2-4): Zagula 4 0-0 11; A. Cross 1 0-2 2; G. Cross 3 1-1 8; Kelly 2 0-0 5; Wilharm 3 0-0 8; Stromile 1 0-0 3; Boffman 1 0-0 3; Taflan 1 0-0 2; Maley 0 0-0 0; Jeter 0 0-0 0; Lyons 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 16, 1-3; 42.
BIG RED (6-4): Hill 5 1-2 14; Buggs 6 0-2 13; Pierce 1 0-0 3; Jones 10 0-0 20; Vostatek 2 0-0 4; Hopkins 4 0-0 8; Kernahan 0 0-0 0; Lewis 2 0-0 4; Mullins 1 0-0 2; Manning 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 21, 1-4; 68.
3-POINT GOALS: Weir High 9 (Zagula 3, Wilharm 2, Stromile, Boffman, Kelly); Big Red 5 (Hill 3, Buggs, Pierce). ASSISTS: Weir High 14 (G. Cross 4); Big Red 16 (Hill 4, Jones 4). REBOUNDS: Weir High 18 (Wilharm 4); Big Red 30 (Jones 13). TURNOVERS: Weir High 16; Big Red 7.