Carey nets 25 as Morgantown avenges defeat
BY MICHAEL CASAZZA The Dominion Post
It was supposed to be a showdown. It was, instead, a mowdown.
Chris Carey scored 25 points and a balanced Morgantown attack removed any and all drama in the first half as the seventh-ranked Mohigans crushed No. 9 Elkins, 74-36, Tuesday night.
“They were not able to get hot,” MHS coach Tom Yester said. “We were hot and we had a lot of people do a lot of good stuff. We had very nice balance.”
Carey, who scored a career-best 29 against University and then 25 against Martinsburg this past week, was 9-for-13 and made three 3-pointers.
“We’ve been lacking scoring lately and we’ve needed someone to step up and lead the way,” he said. “It’s worked out so far.”
Jeff Lindsay, still starting at point guard for injured Dusty Kerns, had nine points and four assists. Marlan Robinson added eight points and Quinn Law seven.
Emil Siriwardane led the reserves with seven points, and his tip-in basket in the second quarter pushed the lead to 21 points, forced Elkins to take a timeout and pretty much ended this one.
John Hatfield added six off the bench, and Andrew Dunn delighted the home crowd with a straight-on 3 late in the game and finished with a game-high eight rebounds.
“It’s late in the year and we’re getting in our stretch run,” Yester said. “They’re getting used to what they have to do. They know what their role is and they’re doing a nice job staying in it.”
In early January, MHS went to Elkins and lost, 75-66.
That, though, was the second game after Migel Lockett left the team and put the Mohigans in a temporary bind. Since then, MHS is 9-2 and 6-0 in the NCAC.
MHS can now win the conference title with a victory at Fairmont Senior next week.
“We were a great team with Migel,” Lindsay said, “and we think we can still be a great team without him.”
Much of the recent and future success goes through Lindsay, a junior in his first full-time varsity season who inherited the starting spot when Kerns injured his shoulder against Wheeling Park, four games ago. And Kerns was starting in Lockett’s spot. Lindsay is averaging 11.3 points in his three starts.
“I’d been starting my whole life before this,” he said. “Coming off the bench was new to me and it was kind of hard at first, but I adjusted. I’ve felt pretty comfortable starting again.”
MHS looked equally at ease Tuesday night. Carey had 10 points in the first quarter, and when the Mohigans decided to extend their defense and increase the pressure late in the second quarter, they were able to force turnovers and run to a 33-21 halftime lead.
At the end of three quarters, the lead was 25 points and MHS had scored 55 points on 38 possessions. MHS finished the game shooting 26-for-50 from the floor with 13 assists.
“The good thing about the second half was we said, ‘OK, it’s 0-0. Let’s go get it,’” Yester said. “And we did that.”
Jason DeProspero/The Dominion Post
(7) Morgantown 74 (9) Elkins 36
