Wellsville battles back to win at McDonald

Zane Carter had 16 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks for the Tigers before fouling out.

By PETE MOLLICA

VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF

MCDONALD — For the second straight game, Wellsville found itself without its top scorer Zane Carter at crunch time.

Last Friday, with Carter out most of the game with muscle spasms in his neck and back, the Tigers lost their first game of the season to Western Reserve 62-61.

Tuesday night, Wellsville’s 6-3 standout fouled out with 49 seconds remaining against McDonald and the Tigers holding a 50-44 lead.

The Tigers were outscored 6-0 by the Blue Devils over that period to force overtime, but Wellsville came back to get the victory 66-60 with some help from Nate Carmen, who scored eight of the team’s 16 points in overtime.

The Tigers (13-1, 8-1) kept possession of the Inter Tri-County League’s Tier Two top spot, while McDonald (10-3, 6-3) dropped to third behind Sebring.

“This is always a tough place to play and we knew we’d be in for a battle,” said Wellsville coach David Thompson. “We played well early in the game and then all of a sudden we stopped running.”

“Any win on the road in this league is a good win, but we made it tough on ourselves tonight,” he added.

McDonald head coach Jeff Rasile said his Blue Devils lost the game in the first quarter.

“We came out stone cold and we had 13 turnovers in the first half and you are not going to beat a team like Wellsville playing that way,” Rasile said.

The Blue Devils missed their first nine shots from the field.

“And most of those were layups,” Rasile said. “I don’t think we were intimidated by them, but the shots just weren’t falling.

The Tigers jumped out to a 10-2 lead early before McDonald fought back to make it 16-11 at the quarter. Wellsville then went up 27-16 in the second, but again the Blue Devils came back to cut the lead to 27-23 at halftime.

Wellsville still led by 10, 46-36 with just over two minutes left in regulation and were up 50-44 with 49.9 seconds remaining when Carter fouled out.

Adam Streb, who led McDonald with 17 points, scored off a rebound and Ronald Johnson followed with another rebound basket with 16.3 seconds to cut the lead to two points 50-48.

When Johnson missed his free throw on a three-point play attempt, J.R. Harvey was there to grab the rebound and was fouled with 14.1 seconds remaining. He made both free throws to tie up the game and then Jeremy Carter missed Wellsville final shot to send the game to overtime.

McDonald scored first in the extra session on a free throw by Johnson and it was the Blue Devils first lead of the game, but after D.J. Douglas put Wellsville back on top and the lead changed hands twice, Carmen came on to score eight of the Tigers final 11 points to ice the victory.

Zane Carter took high honors for the Tigers with 16 points, 11 rebounds and three blocked shots, while Jeremy Carter added 12 and Carmen and Douglas had 10 each.

The Blue Devils also had three others in double figures with Lance Ronghi added 12 and Mikey Thomas and Johnson getting 11 each.

“We missed out on some big rebounds at the end in overtime, but give Wellsville credit they were there to make the plays,” said Rasile.

Still it was a big improvement by the Blue Devils who dropped an earlier contest to the Tigers in Wellsville on Dec. 7, 73-38.

mollica@vindy.com