Charleston – The Renegades have been wrangled.
No. 3 Westside’s bid for its first state championship game appearance in 20 years was brought to a halt Thursday morning in a 57-38 Class AA semifinal loss to No.2 Wheeling Central in the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
The win sends Wheeling Central to the Class AA title game where it will face the winner of Williamstown-Wyoming East on Saturday at 10 a.m.
One run ultimately made the difference for both teams. Trailing just 26-24 at the 3:33 mark of the second quarter, Westside yielded a 12-2 run to close the half, affording the Maroon Knights a cushion that became the difference in the game.
“It just really comes down to following the game plan on the defensive end,” Wheeling Central head coach Mel Stephens said. “We know they’re gonna make some shots, we just wanna make it tough on them and we really stress the defensive rebounding part. Teams are gonna hit shots.
“You gotta make it tough by contesting those shots and then have to finish those possessions out with rebounds and I thought we did that really well. We had talked going into the game about how our big guys had to get box outs and then our guards had to come back and help, which they did.”
The second fatal blow to Westside’s cause came in the fourth quarter where it hit a wall, failing to register a made field goal on 10 attempts.
“I thought we had good open looks several times,” Westside head coach Nick Cook said. “Like I said, there was just a lid on it today and credit their defense. They done a good job.
“We got some shots that we worked to get normally within the flow of the offense an when they scrambled there in the second quarter I thought we got good looks, we just could not seem to – when we needed a big shot it never seemed to go down for us.”
The sluggish close capped what was a slow start for the Westside offense with bright spurts in-between.
Wheeling Central standout Eli Sancomb opened the scoring for the Maroon Knights with a jumper, combing with Max Olejasz to help them to a 10-2 lead.
Kadien Vance responded with a pair of buckets to slash the deficit but Olejasz again answered the call, pushing the lead to 16-6 with 1:48 to play.
Then the Renegades answered.
A 3 from Austin Bishop and a pair of buckets from freshman Bradyn Waldron capped a 7-0 run to close the quarter and bring Westside to within three points at 16-13.
Central pushed its lead back to eight again in the second but Waldron led the charge, grabbing a steal and scoring a layup in transition to make it a 26-24 game. Sancomb unscrewed the wheels.
He scored five points during Central’s sprint to the half, giving the Maroon Knights a comfortable advantage.
“I’m going to be honest, if you can’t touch (Sancomb), they’re gonna be hard to beat,” Cook said. “If he’s allowed to hook and do the things he does – and it’s not sour grapes, we’ve watched it all year long – if you can’t touch him, it’s tough. He’s a tough matchup anyway but if that’s how it’s going to be it makes it hard on everybody. I thought Bradyn did a good job as anybody I’ve seen on him.”
Westside remained alive through the third quarter, cutting the deficit back to eight courtesy of Vance and Waldron but the offense continuously struggled even as the Renegades held Central off the scoreboard for the first four minutes of the half.
Trailing 49-36 after three, their lone points of the fourth quarter came when Vance netted a pair of technical free throws with 6:27 remaining for the final points of his career.
Central struggled offensively in the frame as well, shooting just 2-of-7 from the field but it proved moot with Westside unable to make up ground.
“I saw some of their kids walk down and put their head down,” Olejasz said. “I walked over to our trainer and was like ‘They quit.’ So I knew our defense was getting to them. I knew their – all hope was lost.”
Waldron led Westside with 12 points, drawing the task of guarding Sancomb for much of the morning.
“His defenses tenacious,” Cook said of Waldron. “His offense has come along and he’s getting better but his heart – this kid plays with everything he’s got all the time. So I’m glad he’s up here getting some attention because he’s earned it and he deserves it.”
Vance finished with 11 points and was the only other Renegade to score in double figures.
Sancomb led all scorers with 24 points and 15 rebounds while Olejasz netted 20.
