On Friday, February 16th, the Warriors took on the Spartans of McConnellsburg for the ICC semi-finals. The Warriors could not have started much worse, going down 12-0. The Warrior’s first bucket came from an Owen Koleno layup with one minute and thirty seconds left in the first quarter. The shot broke the ice, and the Warriors then finished the frame strongly, only down by nine points with a score of 7-16.
In the second quarter, the Warriors got back to “West Branch basketball,” as Danny would say, with the help of 3 McGonigal three-pointers. 2 were shot by Dylan and 1 was shot by Zach. It was a one-point game going into the half with a score of 23-24.
The entire second half was back and forth each way with it going into the fourth quarter tied at 43-43. McConnellsburg came out hot and was up by 7 points at most but that got cut back down to a one-point game when Owen Koleno had a put-back to put the score 56-57. That was then followed by a Joel Evans bucket that put the Warriors up by one. Then, with ten seconds left in regulation, Isaac Tiracorda got fouled and went to the line for two shots. He missed the first and made the second. Traveling back down the court, McConnellsburg got a three off to go for the win but came up short for another player to lay it up and send the game into overtime with the score at 59-59. Senior Zach Mcgonigal stated, “They were a much better team overall than what we anticipated going into the game. We were lucky to be able to pull out the win after being down 12 to nothing and taking the game into overtime.”
At the start of overtime, it was push and pull both ways yet again but the Warriors prevailed outsourcing the Spartans 10-4 in the frame taking the win 69-63.
The next day, the Warriors took on the #1 ranked Berlin Brothersvalley. The Warriors started the game strong defensively but couldn’t get anything to fall on offense. Berlin was just too much for the Warriors to handle and West Branch ended up losing 73-44.
The Warriors are now back in action on Wednesday, February 21st, where they will take on the Rockets of Southern Huntington for the first round of districts. Be sure to show up and be loud!
