MORGANTOWN — After the University High boys’ basketball team’s state semifinals loss last year to Martinsburg, there was a lot of scoring that wouldn’t be back.
The Hawks’ all-time leading scorer, Ethan Ridgeway, was gone, along with scorer Austin Forbes. Point guard Kaden Metheny was a proven threat, especially from outside, but there wasn’t much else from the outside looking in.
But on the inside, coach Joe Schmidle knew he had something in guard K.J. McClurg.
“If K.J. started last year, he would have averaged double figures,” Schmidle said. “That team had so much chemistry that we didn’t want to mess it up, but we knew that K.J. could do.”
McClurg, along with Metheny, have been UHS’s best scorers this season, and Wednesday’s 104-48 sectional semifinal win was proof of that.
Metheny dropped 18 points in 2 1/2 quarters before UHS (20-3) brought in its bench, but McClurg was the star offensively, scoring 26 points with seven assists and eight rebounds.
With so much offensive fire power gone from last year’s team, McClurg knew coming into the year that he had to be the scorer his coach knew he could be. He wasn’t a luxury, he was a necessity.
“In the offseason, I worked really hard at it,” McClurg said. “I knew that we had a really good chance to be good chance if we all worked hard. We lost a lot of players but I knew we had the talent. I knew I was going to be a big piece to what we could do.
“That hard work is paying off and now we’ve got five games left to get to where we wanted to be.”
UHS advances to the sectional title game at 7 p.m. Friday, hosting Morgantown, which knocked off Buckhannon-Upshur 72-47. The Hawks are 2-0 against the Mohigans this season and have won eight in a row in the city rivalry.
McClurg, a junior, is settling into a all-around offensive role for the Hawks offensively as the season’s gone on. It’s not just about getting his points, he wants to get his teammates involved and cleanup on the boards.
“As unselfish as he played today … with the way he crashed the boards on the offensive end, that was the biggest thing with K.J. tonight,” Schmidle said. “We’ve been waiting for him to do that. We’ve been stressing that over the last two or three weeks is getting rebounds and he did that today.”
Center Mike Maumbe finished with 10 points, while Tyler Belt finished with 13 points off the bench.
As a team, UHS finished with 104 points with only eight turnovers.
The Knights’ (5-17) season comes to an end in coach Paul Koontz’s second season at the helm. Winning two more games than last year, there was improvement, but they will lose veteran guard Corey Pyles, who scored 10 points against the Hawks. Monty Rebelo is also a senior and scored 10 points in his final game at PHS.
Junior forward Nick Smith will be back and is a piece to build around. He finished with 12 points.
