MHS 77, BROOKE 55
Adrian and Marshall both score more than 20 points
BY MARK SCHRAF
For The Dominion Post
MHS girls’ team to face Wheeling Park. Page 6-B .
The Morgantown boys’ basketball team hosted Brooke on Wednesday in the Region 1, Section One playoff seminfinals and, Mohigans coach Tom Yester said, there were plenty of reasons to be wary of the Bruins.
“We just played them last week (a double-digit MHS win), which has a way of making the second game a little closer,” he explained. “Psychologically, it’s easier to attack than to defend, and they had absolutely nothing to lose, so we wanted to take it to them and take care of our business.”
Mission accomplished.
Morgantown broke open a tight game with a 29-point second-quarter offensive burst, then cruised in the second half to a comfortable 77-55 win.
MHS point guard Nick Colasante was solid on both ends of the court in the first quarter, nailing a pair of 3-pointers and using quick hands to force several turnovers, but Brooke (10-14) managed to hang around and trailed by just 18-15.
That’s when Morgantown (18-5) took full advantage of its length, pounding the glass and forcing the issue on offense, leading to trips to the foul line. Con- verting all 11 free-throws helped the Mohigans outscore Brooke by 13 points in the second quarter, and MHS carried a 47-31 lead into the locker room.
The second half was mostly Dean Marshall and Nathan Adrian for MHS, as they scored 22 of the Mohigans’ 30 points, Adrian led all scorers with 23. Marshall scored a season-high 20.
In fact, Yester was pleased that his team was a single point (from Colasante) away from having five players in double figures.
“We were pretty balanced tonight,” he said, “and I especially liked what we got from Jeff Leftridge, who rebounded well, played well defensively, and scored 12 points. Secondary scoring like that (Connor Loudin chipped in 11 as well) is what we’ll need as we move on.
“We could’ve put the clamps down defensively a little better,” he continued, “especially after we went up by 20 early in the second half (on a big dunk by Adrian), but we never let it get to double digits, so that was decent. Survive and advance.”
Marshall, who looked for his shot and drove to the rim aggressively all night, was reacting to what Brooke showed defensively.
“They went with a smaller line-up, trying to trap us, so we tried to take it to the paint as much as we could,” he explained. “We just need to play this way all the time: Spread it around, take what the defense gives us, don’t force it.”
For the fourth time this season, Morgantown will face Wheeling Park, this time for the sectional championship, at home at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
Upon hearing of the damage Park star “Boo” Lathon wreaked on University in WP’s 61-55 victory, Marshall just shook his head.
“He’s good, a great athlete,” he smiled. “We’ll have to try to prepare for a collaborative effort to control him as much as we can. Some of our guys have played Park 10 or 12 times, so there won’t be any surprises. The team that executes the best will win.”
BROOKE (10-14)
Breen 2 7-8 12, Schambach 2 0-0 6, Barnhart 0 0-2 0, Johnson 5 3-4 14, Wallace 2 2-3 6, Heaton 2 0-0 4, Schwertfeger 4 2-2 13.Totals 17 14-19 55.
MORGANTOWN (18-5)
Colasante 3 0-0 9, Leftridge 3 5-5 12, Marshall 9 1-3 20, Adrian 7 9-11 23, Loudin 4 3-4 11, Allen 1 0-0 2. Totals 27 18-23 77.
Brooke 15 16 12 12 — 55
Morgantown 18 29 12 18 — 77
3-point goals:BHS 7 (Schwertfeger 3, Schambach 2, Johnson, Breen). MHS 5 (Colasante 3, Leftridge, Marshall).

Bob Gay/The Dominion Post
Morgantown’s Nathan Adrian tries to shoot while pressured by Brooke defenders Wednesday night.