West Liberty-Salem’s boys basketball team fought back after a slow start against visiting Mechanicsburg on Friday for a 55-49 victory that locked up at least a share of the Ohio Heritage Conference North division title.
“I am very proud of this group because at one point in the season things weren’t going very well,” said WL-Salem head coach Darrin Leichty. “This group has been through all this and has experience. Sometimes that can make all the difference.
“Matthew Loffing stepped up in the first half and got more aggressive on defense. They all fell in line after that and got some big contributions from guys off the bench. It was a team effort for sure.”
WL-Salem is now 14-5 overall and 11-4 in the OHC North. The Tigers currently have a won game lead over Fairbanks with one league contest remaining.
The Tigers can claim an outright championship with a win over Triad at home on Friday.
“These guys want this thing outright,” said Leichty. “We aren’t celebrating anything until we get past next Friday’s game. Beating Mechanicsburg was nice. We knew it wouldn’t be easy, though, because it never is.”
WL-Salem started Friday’s game down 13-4 after the opening quarter. The Tigers outscored the Indians 15-5 in the second quarter to move in front 19-18 at hafltime.
“Nothing was going right for us early in the game,” said Leichty. “We knew we had to dig in. It was now or never. We got a lot better from that point on.”
The Tigers opened up a 35-27 lead after three quarters and they held off the Indians in the final period to secure the victory.
Matthew Loffing tallied a game-high 17 points to power the Tigers. Eli McGill had 10 points and Nick Burden and Gavin Harrison each added seven points. For the Indians,
Kyle Smith had 13 points and Jake Edwards added 10 points.
In junior varsity action, WL-Salem defeated Mechanicsburg 48-31. Cam Strapp and Tanner LeVan led the Tigers with 13 points apiece and Logan Saylor had 10 points.
WL-Salem travels to Urbana on Tuesday in a non-league makeup game.