David Kravetz

By Rich Stevens

Fairmont Senior boys basketball coach Dave Retton is the polar opposite of the school’s last coach to win a state championship.

That would be Frank “Babe” Stingo, whose outspoken personality and lack of filter has provided more than enough reading material.

They now have a common bond – a title.

The duo of senior Darhius Nunn and freshman Zyon Dobbs combined for 28 points and held Poca juniors Elijah Cuffee and Luke Frampton to 25 percent shooting to lead third-seeded Fairmont Senior to a resounding 55-37 victory over the No. 1 Dots (25-3) in the state high school tournament Class AA finals on Saturday.

“These guys were tremendous on defense,” said Retton, the son of legendary former Fairmont State coach Joe Retton. “We didn’t hold the ball against Poca. To hold them to 37 points, these guys got the job done. All of them. Our bench, starters …”

Although the game began similarly to last year’s championship meeting won by Poca, Fairmont Senior didn’t stumble this time.

In 2015, Poca trailed by 15 after the first quarter, 10 at halftime, and four after three quarters before completing the comeback in the final period.

On Saturday, Fairmont Senior (23-5) led by seven after one, but ascended to a 12-point edge at the half and a 16-point lead after three. The advantage ballooned to 22 with 3:26 left in the third.

The Polar Bears turned the tables on the ball-sharing Dots, who had 22 assists in the semifinals against Wyoming East. Senior had 17 assists to just nine for Poca to give Retton his first championship after becoming head coach in 1997 when Fairmont Senior was a member of Class AAA.

Conversely, this was Poca’s first loss to a West Virginia high school since it was the No. 2 seed in 2014 and lost to No. 3 Bluefield in the state semifinals – a span of 51 games.

“I thought Fairmont played really, really well,” Poca coach Allen Osborne said. “They defended us extremely well.”

Nunn and Dobbs were the key elements to Fairmont Senior’s defense, which wasn’t the same one that allowed Poca to hit 17-of-37 shots in last year’s title game.

The Dots shot 12-of-52 on Saturday and 5-of-21 from 3-point range. Frampton and Kaden Meeks were a combined 0-of-9 from long range and Frampton didn’t score in the second half after tallying six points the first 16 minutes.

“He’s (Dobbs) really athletic,” Cuffee said. “He anticipates really well. He did a really good job on both of us, bothered us when we tried to shoot.”

Cuffee had 20 points and 11 rebounds, but the Dots were never really in the game after Fairmont took a 10-point lead midway through the second quarter.

In fact, a Brennan Moorehead 3-pointer just before the halftime buzzer gave Fairmont a 28-16 lead and the advantage never slipped below 10 again.

In an attempt to slow Senior, Poca went to a zone defense on occasion, a rarity for Osborne.

“Kaden picked up his second foul and playing it really helped us early in the game,” he said. “The 3 at the end of the half hurt us. That was my fault, we should’ve been in man. They were quick, getting in the lane with the dribble, but it all boils down to us not making shots.”

Nunn had 18 points and 10 assists, bringing his three-game assist total at the state tournament to 21.

Moorehead had 13 points and seven rebounds and Dante Stills had 11 of Fairmont’s 32 boards. The Polar Bears scored 12 points off eight Poca turnovers.

By Rich Stevens

The seeds for the West Virginia boys state high school basketball tournament have been reasonably accurate since the system was implemented in 2005.

Except, perhaps, in the case of Huntington.

The Highlanders will try for their third consecutive Class AAA title on Saturday after dispatching of Parkersburg South – its victim in last year’s championship game 66-52 in Friday’s semifinals at the Charleston Civic Center.

Huntington (25-1) faces undefeated and top-seeded Morgantown (26-0) for the Class AAA championship at 7:15 p.m. on Saturday.

In winning back-to-back state titles, Huntington’s victims included the top seeds – Parkersburg South in 2015 and Washington in 2014.

Much like Morgantown, Washington was undefeated going into its meeting with Huntington.

In dispatching of the Patriots (19-8), Huntington gave up eight of the game’s first nine points. After a timeout, it scored all but two of the quarter’s next 21 points to take a nine-point lead.

“When the game started out we were a little bit too excited, maybe a little too much emotion,” Hess said. “When you have somebody like Tavian Dunn-Martin, gets us right back into the game and gets everybody else going too.”

Dunn-Martin, the only Huntington player remaining from its 2013 state quarterfinal team that lost to Martinsburg, hit a 3-pointer and followed a Dajon Congleton 3-pointer with two more.

The end of Parkersburg South’s appeared headed to an abrupt end, trailing by 19 with 5:24 remaining.

However, the Patriots cut the lead to 10 with 1:56 to go before Huntington scored eight of the next 10 points to salt the game away.

“There’s always an end,” said emotional Parkersburg South head coach Mike Fallon. “There’s no way to prepare for it. In the long run, we just couldn’t score.”

Cody Boggs had 18 points and eight rebounds to lead South, while Garrett Gilkeson finished with 11 points and seven boards.

Dunn-Martin continued his hot shooting from long range, hitting 5-of-10 3-pointers. He finished with 19 points and is 10-of-20 from long range in the quarterfinals and semifinals this week. J.R. Howard had 21 points to lead Huntington and Congleton added 10 points and 13 boards.

Dunn-Martin will play in his 10^th state tournament game on Saturday when the Highlanders face unbeaten and top-seeded Morgantown (26-0) at 7:15 p.m.

“No matter where he is he can pull it,” Gilkeson said of Dunn-Martin. “There are quick shooters out there but it doesn’t matter where he is.”

The Akron recruit will play in his 10^th state tournament game on Saturday. Through nine games, he has played 251 minutes and has scored 166 points with 27 3-pointers and is 33-of-40 from the free throw line.

By Rich Stevens

Magnolia senior Preston Boswell is the state’s leading scorer who hoped to save his best for last.

Boswell would have to settle for next to last.

The 2,000-point career scorer poured in a tournament-high 41 points, but didn’t have a field goal past 4:07 of the fourth period as the fifth-seeded Irish stunned the Blue Eagles 70-62 in Friday’s Class A semifinal of the state high school boys basketball tournament at the Charleston Civic Center.

The Blue Eagles (22-3) wouldn’t get the opportunity to face Wheeling Central for the eighth time in the last 24 months.

Instead, St. Joseph will play for the championship in only its second trip to the tournament, becoming only the second Class A No. 5 seed to reach the final. Bishop Donahue accomplished the feat in 2007, losing to Charleston Catholic 83-40. Additionally, single-A won’t have a repeat champion for the seventh consecutive year. Wheeling Central won in 2008 and 2009.

“I’m proud of my team,” said St. Joseph guard John Morrison, who had 17 points and five steals for the Irish. “When we get down, we don’t give up.”

The Irish (21-6) found itself in a tight spot with 2:15 remaining, but just like the quarterfinal against Notre Dame, St. Joseph found a way.

Coach Ross Scaggs’ team trailed 50-45 with 2:15 left in the quarters before going on a 9-0 run to wrap up the school’s first state tournament victory.

The Irish was down 62-61 to Magnolia with 2:15 left and scored the game’s final nine points to finish off its second.

“I wouldn’t want to make a living doing this,” Scaggs said.

In the meantime, St. Joseph clamped down on Boswell, who didn’t score the first 3:20 of the game, then had 17 points the next six minutes. He left the final 1:16 of the second quarter because he was bleeding, giving him 41 points in 27:31 minutes. He returned to start the second half.

“They didn’t do anything we haven’t seen,” Boswell said. “It was very similar to what Wheeling Central does. The uptempo, I think that sped us up a little and we had some bad passes and they had some easy buckets.”

Keith Clemons led the way for the Irish with 24 points, while adding seven rebounds, four assists and two of his team’s nine steals. Deaundra Murphy had 14 points and five rebounds and John Dawson added 13 points, seven rebounds and four assists.

Mitch Winters had nine rebounds for Magnolia, but no other Blue Eagle player scored more than nine points while its bench was outscored by Morrison’s 17

By Rich Stevens

If Morgantown was trying to lull Woodrow Wilson into a false sense of security, it worked beautifully.

If the Mohigans weren’t, it still worked beautifully.

Nicky Solomon matter-of-factly hit a 13-foot floater with 3:58 left to give his team a four-point lead, its largest since the first quarter, and the Mohigans preserved their undefeated record with a 54-50 victory over the Flying Eagles (24-3) in Friday’s Class AAA semifinals of the 2016 boys state high school basketball tournament at the Charleston Civic Center.

Morgantown faces the winner of the Huntington-Parkersburg South game at 7:15 p.m. on Saturday for the Class AAA title.

“That’s a play we ran in 2000,” said Morgantown coach Dave Tallman, who played on Magnolia’s Class AA state title team 16 years ago. “We work on it, we’ve had a lot of leads this year and we don’t play smart basketball all the time. We call that some of our motion. We run it and don’t just want to say don’t score.”

While odd that a score with four minutes left of a four-point result in a state tournament semifinal might have been the play of the game, Woodrow Wilson coach Ron Kidd and forward Nequan Carrington remembered it.

“I felt like once they got a lead, they were just trying to slow us down, trying to put us to sleep,” Carrington said. “When they felt like they caught us sleeping, they were going to try to score.”

That wasn’t the intention of the Mohigans, who are making their 18^th state tournament appearance.

Solomon saw a crease and, like so many times this season, the junior took advantage.

“The runner’s been one of my best shots all year,” said Solomon, who had 14 points, four rebounds and two steals. “We move the ball until we get an open shot. Kenzie (Melko) passed it and I found an open lane.”

The lead reached five and Woodrow cut it to one twice in the last 1:34, but couldn’t get over the hump.

The victory put behind Morgantown a precarious 32 minutes that threatened its chance to become the first Class AAA team to go unbeaten since the 1985 Stonewall Jackson Generals.

Woodrow Wilson (24-3), which has 16 titles but none since 2008, hit 3-pointers early and attacked the basket late, staying around through second chances – its M.O. this season.

Woodrow had five more offensive boards than Morgantown, but only two  more putbacks. Surprisingly, it also lost the battle of fast break points (12-6) and points in the paint (32-26) – two strengths of the Flying Eagles.

The Flying Eagles didn’t rely heavily on the 3-pointer after hitting 5-of-8 in the first half. Kidd was fine with his team attempting only five in the third and fourth quarters.

However, Kidd would like to have seen his players attack the rim with more vigor.

“Some of our shots wouldn’t fall,” Kidd said. “Like we did the night before, I didn’t think we attacked the way we should have tonight. We weren’t aggressive enough.”

Ty Walton finished with 13 points to lead Woodrow, but missed three 3-point attempts after going 3-of-4 in the first half. Breland Walton had 11 points and seven rebounds off the bench and Nequan Carrington had 10 points, six rebounds and three steals.

Steven Solomon’s 18 points led the way for Morgantown, which plays in the title game for the first time since before the three-class system was implemented in 1959. In 1956, Jerry West led East Bank to a 71-58 decision over the Mohigans in the final of Class A – then the state’s largest class.

Cover photo by WV Sports Photography for RSN Sports

By Rich Stevens

Second-seeded Wheeling Central did its part.

Now, the Maroon Knights await the result of the second Class A semifinal at the 2016 boys state high school basketball tournament to see if its sectional nemesis will take care of business.

Wheeling Central coach Mel Stephens will seek his sixth state championship since taking over in 2003 when his team faces the winner of the meeting between defending champion Magnolia and St. Joseph in the Class A championship at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.

What could only be mildly described as a result that wasn’t as close as expected, Wheeling Central rolled over No. 3 Tug Valley for a 69-47 semifinal win on Friday.

All-State guard Chase Harler had 27 points, seven rebounds and three assists to lead the Maroon Knights (24-2) before leaving the game in the fourth quarter of the rout.

Harler played much of the fourth with a noticeable limp, but didn’t leave the game for good before the result was no longer in question.

“I helped on (teammate Brent Price’s) guy and I stepped on his foot (in the third quarter),” Harler said. “I sprinted back into the training room, got it taped, and came back out. It’s hurting right now, but I’ll be ready for the (championship).”

Tug Valley (20-4) kept it close, despite leading scorer Jeremy Dillon picking up two fouls at 6:40 and 6:49 of the first quarter respectively.

Dillon, who averages 16.8 points, stayed in until the 1:45 mark of the first, avoiding any more foul trouble. He finished with 15 points and six rebounds, both team highs.

“We got off to a fast start and a quick lead, then Jeremy picked up his second foul on a block call,” Tug Valley coach Edwyn May said. “That changes the game. They went on a run when they created their distance before the half.”

Tug Valley trailed by 12 at halftime and managed to trim the advantage to six with 4:50 left in the third, but couldn’t get any closer.

The Panthers were overmatched by Harler, a 6-foot-3 matchup problem who is moved around the Wheeling Central offense to exploit mismatches.

“Late in the game they put a small guard on me and I had to take advantage of my size,” said Harler, who had 15 points in the second half.

Guard John Burkhalter also added a long-range option for the Maroon Knights, who are used to Harler getting most of the attention from opponents.

Burkhalter had a team-high 20 points in Wheeling Central’s quarterfinal win and added 15 on Friday. He is 5-of-10 on 3-point goals in the two games.

Wheeling Central will try to win its ninth small school championship in 11 tries since winning three titles in eight tries as a Class AA program.

The other semifinal was to be determined in the second game of Friday’s sessions.

St. Joseph is seeking its first championship-game berth in its second state tournament appearance. The Irish were eliminated in the quarterfinals in 1989.

Harler said he doesn’t care who the Maroon Knights play, although there’s a little something extra with Magnolia.

The Maroon Knights and Blue Eagles have played seven times since the beginning of the 2014-15 season with Magnolia winning five, including both sectional championships and last year’s state title game.

“We’ll take whoever wins that game,” Harler said. “Either team that wins, I’m confident that we’ll give them a run for their money. We have a little bit of a rivalry with Magnolia. We lost to them last year, so a little bit of revenge would be nice.”

Cover photo by WV Sports Photography

By Rich Stevens

The Wyoming East boys basketball team wanted to stay true to itself.

So did Poca.

Advantage, Dots.

Fourth-seeded Wyoming East ran into a determined defending champion on Friday afternoon in the 2016 boys high school state basketball tournament, dropping a 85-55 decision — the largest margin of victory in a Class AA semifinal since seeding began in 2005.

Poca (25-2), which won the 2015 title to cap a 27-0 season, emphatically eliminated the Warriors to advance to a championship-game rematch against Fairmont Senior at noon on Saturday.

“We wanted to run it back at Poca and it didn’t turn out in our favor,” Wyoming East coach Rory Chapman said. “Everybody tried to slow it down. Scott slowed it down, Chapmanville slowed it down and stayed in the game. We wanted to be true to our style and play up tempo. They started making lots of shots in the second quarter.”

With 6:34 remaining, Poca led 71-35 in a game that it didn’t trail. The Dots defeated Scott in the Region 4 co-final 20-10 and Chapmanville in the state quarterfinals 30-28.

The semifinal was never in question.

Poca scored the first seven points of the game, had four more unanswered points after East’s first basket, went on an 11-0 run that spanned the first and second quarters and sprinted away with 12 of the final 14 points before the intermission to lead by 32.

“I thought the first half we really played well,” Poca coach Allen Osborne said. “Our defense was outstanding. We took away their transition game, took them off the boards. Offensively, we were pretty efficient. Guys made some shots. They broke a sweat today.”

Junior Jason Cuffee had 20 points 18 rebounds, seven assists, three steals and two blocked shots. Luke Frampton led Poca in scoring with 24 points and contributed six assists, five rebounds and three steals. The Dots had a tournament-high 22 assists with seven players contributing to the total.

Kaden Meeks added 17 points six rebounds and three assists.

Wyoming East (20-5) shot 34.5 percent from the field and was outrebounded 44-30. R.J. Foldon, the hero of the Warriors’ quarterfinal win over Robert C. Byrd, had 14 points to lead East.

Poca will play for its second straight Class AA state title against Fairmont Senior for the second consecutive time.

The Dots also own a 60-53 win over the Polar Bears in the Big Ten/Cardinal Challenge at West Virginia State University’s Walker Convocation Center on Dec. 19.

Cover photo by WV Sports Photography for RSN Sports

By Rich Stevens

Fifth-seeded St. Joseph came back from a seven-point deficit with 3:15 remaining, scoring 13 of the game’s final 15 points to earn the second upset of the day — albeit a mild one — with a 54-50 win over No. 4 Notre Dame (19-4) in the final quarterfinal game of the 2016 West Virginia boys high school state basketball tournament on Thursday.

In the last Class AAA quarterfinal of the tournament, No. 6 Parkersburg South upended No. 3 Capital 87-86 in two overtimes.

St. Joseph (20-6) didn’t need extra time.

In fact, coach Ross Scaggs saw his team get down by eight to Notre Dame with 4:46 left, its biggest deficit of the contest.

Junior Jarrod West, the only double figure scorer for Notre Dame, had 19 points, five assists and three rebounds with his last points coming on a three-point play at the 3:15 mark.

“We had a couple turnovers and still had a five-point lead down the stretch,” coach Jarrod West said. “We just couldn’t hold it.”

Notre Dame was plagued by poor foul shooting, hitting just 6-of-14 attempts. St. Joseph, which faces No. 1 Magnolia in the semifinals at 7:15 p.m. on Friday, was 5-of-6 from the line beginning with a pair of foul shots from John Dawson that cut the lead to one with 1:31 left. Keith Clemons stole the ball seven seconds later, leading to a Deaundra Murphy layup to give St. Joseph the lead for good.

“We came back and switched defenses in the fourth quarter the last couple minutes,” St. Joe coach Ross Scaggs said. “We went to a zone press and it seemed to work. This is our third game with Notre Dame and every one has gone down to the wire.”

St. Joseph lost at Notre Dame 68-65 on Dec. 29 before winning the return matchup in Huntington 66-65.

St. Joseph’s balance featured three double-figure scorers. Dawson had 18 points, Clemons 17 and Murphy 14. Murphy also had 19 rebounds to lead the way for the victors. Jacob Streiter had 12 boards as St. Joe held a 42-31 edge on rebounds.

Semifinal Friday at the state tournament begins at 9:30 a.m. with a Class AA matchup between No. 3 Fairmont Senior (21-5) and No. 2 Bridgeport (23-2). The Indians swept the regular-season series, winning at home 67-56 and at Fairmont 56-47.

At 11:15 a.m., No. 3 Tug Valley (20-3) faces No. 2 Wheeling Central (23-2), before the morning session concludes with a 1 p.m. matchup between defending Class AA champion and top-seeded Poca (24-2) against  No. 4 Wyoming East (20-4).

The evening session gets underway at 5:30 p.m. with No. 1 and unbeaten Morgantown (25-0) battling No. 4 Woodrow Wilson (24-2), followed by Class A No. 1 and defending champion Magnolia (22-2) facing No. 5 St. Joseph (20-6) at 7:15 p.m.

The final semifinal will pit two-time defending Class AAA champion and second-seeded Huntington (24-1) against No. 6 Parkersburg South (19-7).

Saturday’s championship games begin with the Class AA final at noon, followed by Class A at 2:30 p.m. before the Class AAA championship set for 7:15 p.m.

Cover photo by WV Sports Photography for RSN Sports

By Rich Stevens

The final point scored was the decisive one in Fairmont Senior’s 48-47 Class AA boys state high school tournament victory over Bridgeport.

It came on a free throw following a technical, but the Indians saw multiple opportunities pass by in the waning moments of Friday’s Class AA boys state high school tournament semifinal.

Fairmont Senior (22-5) will play for the Class AA title for the third time in four seasons when it faces the winner of the Poca-Wyoming East contest at noon on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Bridgeport (23-3) coach Mike Robey, whose team missed a chance for the three-game sweep of the Polar Bears this season, was incredulous about a technical foul in the last minute.

“I guess that’s the official’s call and that’s the call,” Robey said.

Bridgeport’s Logan Smith intercepted a Fairmont Senior inbound with 28.5 seconds left in a 47-47 game. Fairmont freshman Zyon Dobbs tied up Smith, leading to a whistle for a held ball. A second whistle for a technical foul on Smith immediately followed.

Smith made contact with Dobbs during a deadball, resulting in the technical foul. An intentional foul could also have been called, according to the rulebook, but would have the same result – two foul shots and possession.

“A couple things happened that personally, I never seen before,” Robey said. “I asked if I could talk to him and he said, ‘Yes sir.’ I said, a technical? A technical for what? Did my kid say something? ‘No coach. He made contact with him after I called the jump ball.’

“We teach our kids to rip the ball. We do that every day in practice. He said our kid made contact with him after he called the jump ball. I guess that’s the official’s call and that’s the call.”

Smith, who received the technical, said, “Zyon Dobbs tried to steal the ball, I ripped through like I was supposed to, Zyon fell. I don’t really know how that’s a technical, but he teed me up.”

Fairmont Senior’s Darhius Nunn hit one of the two foul shots and Smith got another steal, setting up Bridgeport for a potential game-winner.

The Indians called timeout with 10.5 seconds left, but the Polar Bears knocked it away with 4.5 left. A final chance was also quelled by Fairmont Senior.

The technical happened near Fairmont Senior coach Dave Retton, who explained what he saw.

“I saw our guys do a great job, our guys maintain our composure, they called the technical and we made one,” Retton said. “That’s what I saw and I liked what I saw.”

The play was merely the exclamation point on a game that featured multiple missed chances.

The teams combined to shoot 57 percent from the free throw line and Bridgeport held Fairmont Senior to four points in the fourth quarter while climbing back from a deficit that reached nine points in the third.

There were nine lead changes in the hard-fought third meeting between the two teams this season. Bridgeport won the first two by a combined 20 points.

Nunn led Fairmont Senior with 15 points, 10 rebounds, six steals and four assists, while Brennan Moorehead added 10 points. Dobbs had nine rebounds.

Bonamico’s 14 points led the way for Bridgeport, which also received 12 points from Smith and 11 from Nick Greely, who was held to 10 points below his season average.

Fairmont Senior, making its fourth straight state tournament as a Class AA program, fell to Poca in last year’s championship. This season, the Polar Bears routed Wyoming East 101-52 in the season opener before losing to the Dots in the Cardinal-Big 10 Challenge at West Virginia State University eight days later.

The Polar Bears have reached the state tournament in Class AAA and Class AA a combined 33 times with five championships in Class AAA. Fairmont Senior still seeks its first double-A crown.

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9:30AM  Bridgeport vs. Fairmont Senior

11:15AM  Wheeling Central vs. Tug Valley

1PM    Wyoming East vs. Poca

5:30PM  Woodrow vs. Morgantown

7:15PM  Saint Joe Central vs. Magnolia

9PM  Parkersburg South vs. Huntington

By Rich Stevens

No amount of offensive rebounds and second chance opportunities could save third-seeded Capital from being the first upset victim at the 2016 boys state high school basketball tournament.

Cole Day scored with 1:29 left in the second overtime and Capital’s Miguel “Crunchy” Bays missed the front end of a two-shot foul with 4 seconds left as No. 6 Parkersburg South held on for an 87-86 victory in the final Class AAA quarterfinal of the week.

Capital had a desperation attempt from about three-quarter court that went over the backboard, setting off a wild celebration for the Patriots.

South (19-7), the top seed last year that fell to Huntington in the title game, advances to face the second-seeded Highlanders at 9 p.m. on Friday.

“There is a ton of emotions,” South coach Mike Fallon said. “The first half was a dogfight, back and forth. We couldn’t keep them off the boards. We rebounded much better in the second half.”

Capital’s largest lead was seven with 4:44 left in the first quarter. South, on the other hand, went up by 15 with just 1:42 remaining in the third.

The Cougars scored the last six points of the third and 20 of the first 28 points of the fourth to take a two-point lead with 1:30 remaining.

“Parkersburg South did a really good job handling the pressure early,” said Capital first-year coach Matt Greene, the son of George Washington coach Rick Greene, who won the 1971 Class AAA state title as a player for GW and coached it to the 2011 crown. “We went to more of a half-court man defense and got some turnovers.”

It was no surprise that a pair of Cody Boggs free throws tied the game for South and forced the first overtime.

South star Garrett Gilkeson said the players shoot a lot of free throws in practice with Fallon pointing out that they have to run for every miss.

It paid off.

South was 33-of-41 from the line, offsetting a 53-43 deficit in rebounds, a 25-10 Capital advantage on the offensive boards and finishing with 23 turnovers. The Cougars struggled mightily at the line, hitting only 21 of their 37 opportunities.

“We haven’t shot free throws particularly well all year,” Greene said. “We’ve been sporadic from the line.”

As for second chances, Capital could only get 18 points out of those 25 offensive boards, while South had as many second-chance points (10) as offensive rebounds.

Ultimately, it came down to what is officially a jumper from Day, but went in as he fell backwards near the baseline.

“I was just going for a turnaround jumper, got hammered and just threw it up there,” said Day, who had 20 points and 10 rebounds.

The Patriots finished with five double-figure scorers, led by Garrett Gilkeson, who had 21 points, eight rebounds, six assists and three steals before fouling out early in the first overtime.

Bays had 26 points and a game-high 18 rebounds to lead Capital. Point guard Leondre Rogers had 24 points, five rebounds, six assists and six steals. Deshawn Hatfield had 13 points and six boards. Capital had eight players with at least four rebounds each.