West Liberty-Salem’s basketball team caught fire shortly after the opening whistle Friday against visiting Triad and piled up the points for an eye-popping 95-55 win. In the process, the Tigers locked up the outright Ohio Heritage Conference North division championship.
“We are definitely pleased with how we played,” said WL-Salem head coach Darrin Leichty. “During the course of the season it wasn’t always easy. We weathered a couple of storms and finished on a fairly high note.
“I was very, very thrilled with the energy that we brought. We scored tonight because everybody was engaged, we flew around the court and we played defense.” Leichty noted that Friday’s point total was not a school record.
The Tigers improve to 15-5 on the season and win the OHC North with a 12-4 record. The Cardinals drop to 2-19, 1-15.
Friday’s game saw WL-Salem score just four points in the first four minutes of the game. Then the Tigers raced out to a 12-3 lead with 3:58 left in the opening quarter. The Tigers then went on a12-2 run in the next minute of the game to go up 24-5. They finished the period ahead 30-8.
A 29-10 run by WL-Salem in the second quarter carried the Tigers to a 59-18 halftime cushion.
WL-Salem took its foot off the gas pedal in the second half, but still outscored Triad 26-21 in the third quarter. That made it an 85-39 score. The Cardinals finished the game with a 16-10 effort in the fourth quarter.
Holden Nease highlighted the scoring barrage for WL-Salem with 27 points. Matthew Loffing tallied 16 points, Jack Eggleston had 13 points, Nick Burden scored nine points, while Caleb Siegenthaler and Trevor Woodruff each had eight points.
“We felt pretty good about how we’re playing,” said Leichty “This is the time of the year we need to be playing our best and we’ve seen it at different times this year consistently in back-to-back games. We want to finish off strong (tonight) for senior night against Miami East.”
For the Cardinals, Dillon Nott led the way with 23 points, including seven three pointers, and Andrew O’Neal tallied 10 points.
In junior varsity action, WL-Salem dropped Triad 48-25 to improve to 17-4 on the season. Logan Saylor led the Tigers with 21 points, Tanner LeVan had 14 points and Cam Strapp had eight points.
The Tigers also took the freshman game 44-42. Andrew Kimball led the Tigers with 16 points. Cam Hess led the Cardinals with 13 points and Tyler Perry had 12 points.
Both teams finish the regular season tonight. WL-Salem hosts Miami East, while Triad hosts Upper Scioto Valley.