MORGANTOWN — The climb.
It’s what sports are really all about. For a player, it’s mastering the skills, learning the game, building the body, rehabbing an injury. For a team, it’s building cohesion, finding roles, or overcoming a big deficit. For a program, it’s becoming the best team you can be in a season while simultaneously building toward the future.
Tuesday night, the Morgantown boys’ basketball team hosted Preston – two teams on their own paths – and while the 81-37 MHS victory might’ve been somewhat expected, the results indicated that both the Mohigans and Knights are traveling on an upward trajectory.
Preston (10-6) has reached double-digit victories for the first time in recent memory, and coach Bucky Forbes is pleased with his team’s progress overall.
“We improved nicely through the season,” he explained. “It’s a pretty challenging schedule for us – we’ve played seven top 10 ranked teams so far, including Class AAAA No. 1 Morgantown tonight and Class AAA No. 1 Bridgeport on Saturday. We had a rough game tonight, with a short bench, but the kids have learned a lot this year. Just the way we handled their pressure compared to last year shows that. We’re a work in progress, but the pieces and style of our game are developing nicely, and I like where we’re headed.”
For 14-1 Morgantown, their mountaintop is as high as you can climb – three-time defending State champions looking for a four-peat – and coach Dave Tallman always focuses his teams on reaching their peak at the right time.
Tournament time.
“We started pretty slow tonight offensively,” he admitted, “because we haven’t played much due to weather cancellations. But we picked it up in the second half, and I think we just need to get back into the rhythm of playing regularly. We were balanced (all five starters scored in double figures, led by Waylon Colistra and Brady Savage with 13. PHS guard Easton Hayes led all scorers with 20), and I think we are rounding into shape, getting better.
“We have two strong, experienced leaders in Brady and Morty Johnson,” he continued, “and they make our offense go. It’s great to have your leaders also be your most talented and hardest workers, and it was great to see Morty get recognized as the OVAC MVP (after the Mohigans’ big comeback win in the title game against Steubenville last week). He’s playing really well right now.”
Johnson, a slick, left-handed point guard and shut-down man defender, lit up when asked about the award.
“It was pretty great,” he smiled, “but the best part was coming back from being down 17 points. That doesn’t really happen to us very often, so I knew that I had to step up my game and help get other guys going, too. It was huge for us, to face adversity like that and then respond, because we know that if we want to defend our status, we will get challenged and have to fight for it. It was good for us that we proved to ourselves that we could do it.”
Johnson, like any good point guard, is an extension of his head coach, and like Tallman, he likes where his team is headed, but knows there are no shortcuts or excuses.
“We came out sloppy tonight,” he said, the smile gone. “We can’t do that; we can’t ever relax. The defensive intensity has to be on full all game, because it creates our offense. Our intensity is our identity, and we all need to bring it – every practice and every game.
“But we’re getting closer,” he concluded, grinning again, “and we still have room to improve our game, our execution, our concentration. And when we get there, when we really start to peak, we’re gonna be scary.”
Preston travels to Hampshire this Friday for a 7:00 p.m. tip, while Morgantown faces a tough road match-up against rival Wheeling Park at 7:00 p.m.
Box score
PRESTON (10-6)
Aiden Schmidt 1 1-2 3 Tristan Smith 3 2-2 10 Easton Hayes 7 4-6 20 Aaron White 1 0-0 2 Wyatt Moyer 1 0-0 2 Totals 13 7-10 37.
MORGANTOWN (14-1)
Max Frey 3 5-5 11 Demarcus Bandy 4 2-4 12 Cam Kellogg 1 0-0 2 Morty Johnson 4 3-4 12 Waylon Colistra 6 1-1 13 Brady Savage 6 1-4 13 Marcus Goins 1 0-0 3 Alex Himes 3 0-0 7 Akir Johnson 1 0-0 3 Jaylen Deuesenberry 1 0-0 2 Collin Ridgeway 1 0-0 3 Totals 31 12-18 81.
3-pointers: PHS 4 (Hayes 2, Smith 2), MHS 7 (Goings, Bandy 2, Himes, A. Johnson, M. Johnson, Ridgeway).
