Zach Heasley

While the winter weather has been making it very difficult to hold a decent school basketball schedule together, the Paden City High School boys basketball team has been fortunate enough to get in several important games.

The Wildcats collected two big wins last week, defeating both River and Magnolia, making the road trips very worthwhile indeed for the eight-man squad.

Paden City traveled just up the road to New Martinsville on Feb. 8 to take on the Blue Eagles of Magnolia. They played a sure, solid game of basketball in order to take quite an impressive win from the 9-5 Eagles to the tune of 89-82.

“This was a good game on the part of both teams,” said Paden City Head Coach Fred King. “Both teams shot the lights out.”

The home team held quite the lead by 10 points, 27-17, after the first full period of play, but the Green and White did not let that mere fact deter them. In the second, the ‘Cats found their footing and continued to plug away offensively, outscoring the Eagles, 17-12, catching up, but still finding themselves behind in the score, 39-34 at the half.

In the third period, Paden City stayed true to their game plan and outscored the Blue, 24-13, heading into the final stanza in the lead, 58-52. In an all-out battle for glory, both teams put together excellent fourth periods with the Big Blue putting up 30 points on the home side of the scoreboard and the ‘Cats adding 31 to take the win in the end, 89-82.

“Everybody contributed,” King said. “What a great team effort this was by our guys. I’m very proud of them and the solid effort they gave in this game against a very good team.”

Junior Zach Heasley shined from down town in the game for the Wildcats, making good on six of 11 three-pointers to pad his game high/career high 33 points. Heasley also pulled down eight rebounds, had eight assists, stole the ball once, and had two blocks. Fellow junior Kennedy Cain put 28 points on the scoreboard, had eight rebounds, three assists, and a block.

Junior Craig Allen did his part in the game, totaling 12 points with one rebound and a steal; sophomore Luke Cooper added 11 points, brought down four rebounds, had three assists, a steal, and two blocks; and freshman, Hayden Hizer scored five points, had three rebounds, 11 assists, and a steal.

Earlier in the week, the Wildcats faced off with River at the Rotary Challenge Basketball Tournament in New Martinsville, taking the win over the Pilots, 52-48.

Playing with the “W” in mind, Paden City led the game after the first half, 34-28.

Though both teams played a slowed down second half and the ‘Cats were outscored in the last period, Paden City easily took the win over the Pilots, 52-48.

Cain was the top Wildcat scorer on the day, turning in 14 points, five rebounds, an assist, and a block on the day.

Cooper came through with 13 points, had three rebounds, three steals, and a block; Allen, 11 points, three assists, one steal; Heasley, seven points, eight rebounds, six assists, one steal, one block; and Hizer, seven points, one rebound, five assists, and three steals.

Sitting pretty right now, ranked third in class 1A in the OVAC, the ‘Cats were to take on Bishop Donahue on Tuesday.

A win will pit the team against the winner of Morgantown Trinity and Weirton Madonna later in the week.

On Feb. 14 Coach King and the Wildcats will travel to Summersville to take on Meadow Bridge in the West Virginia Hometown Invitational Tournament Championships.