CURWENSVILLE – The Curwensville Area High School basketball team was thrust into a bad situation Monday night even though DuBois Central Catholic was playing its fifth consecutive road game.
The Golden Tide caught the Cardinals on the rebound from a 52-42 loss at Ridgway Friday night that prevented them from locking up the Allegheny Mountain League South Division title.
The Cardinals proceeded to scorch the Patton Hall nets for 20 field goals in just 27 shots during the first 16 minutes, and the torrid 74-percent pace carried them to a 46-22 halftime lead.
DuBois Central Catholic (13-4) cooled off only slightly in the third period while expanding the spread to 63-32 and wound up with a 60.4 percent performance and a 75-42 victory for a share of the AML-South title with Ridgway, which held of Brockway 60-55 Monday night. Both teams are 5-1.
No less than 23 of the Cardinals’ 32 field goals came right under the basket, either driving layups or easy shots off the majority of their 20 assists.
“You’ve got to give them credit for executing their offense and their fast break, but we didn’t do a good job containing the drive,” Curwensville coach Matt Wassil said. “That was one of the keys we had on the board for the game.
“You can’t let them get strong hand drives. They’re gonna find people. If you’re giving them a shot in the paint, they’re not gonna miss those.
“They’re just too good of a team.”
Dan Fitzpatrick led DuBois Central Christian’s three-pronged attack with 18 points, Chris Marshall was right behind with 17 and Jake Krause chipped in with 13.
Marshall, the 2009-10 All American Awards & Engraving/D9Sports.com District 9 Player of the year, also pulled down 10 rebounds for a double-double.
Curwensville, which managed only 17 points in a 42-point loss on the DCC floor Jan. 7, got a dozen points from Alec Starr, his fourth double-digit effort in the last five games.
Wassil said the Golden Tide showed improvement against the Cardinal pressure defense.
“I thought our kids executed our press break a lot better this time,” he said. “I think the last time we played them, we might have had 10 or 12 shots at halftime because we had turned the ball over so many times.”
However, Curwensville couldn’t match DuBois Central Christian’s ability to register points in rapid fashion.
Ahead 12-8 after three minutes, the Cardinals went on a 15-2 run the rest of the first quarter with six points from Krause and five from Fitzpatrick, who hit one of his two three-pointers.
Both teams were hot while trading buckets in the second period, the Golden Tide converting six of nine shots and the Cardinals sinking nine of 11. Post players Kyle Barrett of Curwensville and Dan O’Connor of DuBois Central Catholic came off the bench to score six points apiece.
Again, the Cardinals closed strong, netting nine of the last 11 points in the quarter for the 24-point bulge at intermission, and they widened it to 31 points on 8-for-14 shooting in the third quarter with Marshall and Krause combining for 11 points. Starr had six for the Golden Tide.
“We were a little bit deficient defensively,” Wassil said. “You can play solid defense against them and still give up a lot of points, but I felt our defense could have been a lot better.”
Brad Gallagher and Taylor Pentz had five assists apiece for the Cardinals, who outrebounded the Golden Tide 35-21.
Curwensville, 3-13 after its AML-South finale, resumes its Moshannon Valley League schedule Wednesday when West Branch visits Patton Hall.
In the junior varsity game, DuBois Central Catholic won 51-40 in overtime. Trevon Pennington tossed in 15 points and Jesse Zorger added 11 for Curwensville.
Allegheny Mountain League South Division final standings – DuBois Central Catholic 5-1, Ridgway 5-1, Brockway 2-4, Curwensville 0-6.
DUBOIS CENTRAL CATHOLIC — 75
Jake Krause 5 2-2 13, Brad Gallagher 1 2-2 4, Chris Marshall 8 0-0 17, Taylor Pentz 3 0-2 6, Dan Fitzpatrick 8 0-0 18, A.J. Nesbit 0 0-0 0, Dan O’Connor 4 0-0 8, Brock LaBue 1 0-0 2, Jude Rapski 0 0-0 0, Connor Park 0 0-0 0, Jeremy Johnson 1 0-0 3, Jeremy Maurer 1 0-0 2, Steven Sette 0 0-0 0, Jake Heigle 0 2-2 2. TOTALS: 32 6-8 75.
CURWENSVILLE — 42
Alex Starr 6 0-0 12, Boone McGary 1 0-0 0, Shelby McGary 1 2-2 4, Will Rauckhorst 1 0-0 2, Tanner Elensky 2 0-0 4, Kyle Barrett 4 0-0 8, Shane Hoover 2 0-1 4, Jesse Zorger 1 0-0 2, Alex Olson 2 0-0 4, Dan Davis 0 0-0 0, Brett Gardner 0 0-0 0, Marcus Stephenson 0 0-0 0, Trevon Pennington 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 20 2-3 42.
Three-Point Field Goals – DuBois Central Catholic 5 (Krause, Marshall, Fitzpatrick 2, Johnson).
Score by Quarters
DuBois Central Catholic 27 19 17 12 – 75
Curwensville 10 12 10 10 – 42
Officials – Bill Zupich and Tim Barnes.
Date | Opponent | Score | Record |
12/10 | GLENDALE | 16 – 41 | 0 – 1 |
12/14 | @ Brockway | 37 – 62 | 0 – 2 |
12/17 | RIDGWAY | 44 – 60 | 0 – 3 |
12/20 | @ Glendale | 31 – 64 | 0 – 4 |
12/22 | MO VALLEY | 71 – 29 | 1 – 4 |
12/28 | KSAC/AML Challenge | ||
vs. Union (H) | 44 – 61 | 1 – 5 | |
12/29 | KSAC/AML Challenge | ||
vs. A-C Valley (H) | 37 – 60 | 1 – 6 | |
01/04 | KANE | 56 – 48 | 2 – 6 |
01/07 | @ DuBois Central | 17 – 69 | 2 – 7 |
01/11 | JOHNSONBURG | 29 – 48 | 2 – 8 |
01/13 | @ Harmony | 39 – 63 | 2 – 9 |
01/19 | ELK CO. CATHOLIC | 38 – 58 | 2 – 10 |
01/21 | @ West Branch | 48 – 40 | 3 – 10 |
01/25 | @ Ridgway | 34 – 75 | 3 – 11 |
01/28 | BROCKWAY | 42 – 67 | 3 – 12 |
01/31 | DUBOIS CENTRAL | 42 – 75 | 3 – 13 |
02/02 | WEST BRANCH |