WHEELERSBURG — Basketball, as is often said, is a game of runs. There aren't many runs, however, like the one Wheelersburg had at home Friday night.

The Pirates went on a 24-0 run, covering eight minutes in the third and fourth quarters to take a 59-50 win over Northwest in both teams' SOC II opener.

Before the run, Wheelersburg trailed by 17 points.

"It was a game of runs," Wheelersburg coach Tom Barrick said. "We knew it would be a game of runs, but never thought it would be that big of a run. We were talking four, six, eight point runs. But we never thought there would be that big of a swing."

That swing happened in an eight-minute stretch after Northwest's Kreig Crabtree hit back-to-back 3's to put the Pirates down 45-28 with 1:10 to play in the third quarter.

Wheelersburg answered when Andrew Bendolph drove to the hoop for a bucket, then pulled up for a three as time expired in the third quarter.

"I thought probably the key play was the three pointer right before the end of the third quarter," Barrick said. "It got us to (12-down) then we came right out and got another basket. So in a 10-, 20-, 30-second period, we cut five points into the lead. We were down 15, got it to 12, then came right out and got a two to cut into it."

After shooting 6-for-22 in the second and third quarters, Wheelersburg came alive in the fourth, shooting 7-for-14 from the field. The Mohawks, on the other hand, were just 2-for-12 in the final period.

Northwest called a timeout with 6:48 to play and returned to the court, trying to stall with a seven point lead. But Wheelersburg's Webb Ballard stepped in front of a pass and took it coast-to-coast to make it a five-point game.

"That was a huge play, no question about it," Barrick said. "(Ballard) got a touch with the correct denial hand, got it to the rim and finished... That got it under seven. Once you get it back to two possessions, it truly is anybody's game."

Ballard scored two more, then Tyler Lang knocked down two 3's in less than a minute as Wheelersburg took over the lead.

Lang scored 19 points for the Pirates, while Andy Stegman led the way with 22 points, 16 rebounds and four blocks.

"I thought our kids played their butts off for three and a half quarters," Northwest coach Rick Scarberry said. "We just had a little run there where we broke down in every phase of the game. We gave up some easy stuff defensively letting them shoot the ball a bit where we had done a nice job containing. We broke down offensively, where we'd break the press then take a bad shot. It's just mental errors, we'd done a nice job of (preventing) all night until that span."

The Mohawks battled back-and-forth with Wheelersburg early on, trailing by no more than three. A Hank Leslie three-point play tied the score, and started a 13-0 Mohawk run that lasted for more than five minutes of the second quarter.

Sparking the run were Leslie and Crabtree, who both scored 12 in the first half. Crabtree led Northwest with 18 points, making five 3-pointers. Leslie added 16 and 11 rebounds.

The duo sparked the Mohawks again in the third quarter, as they pushed the lead to 17.

"Northwest executed for the second, and almost the entire third quarter, just about flawlessly," Barrick said. "They named their shot. They got the inside and the outside shot. Their execution was outstanding. They had an answer for everything we tried to do. We did not have an answer for anything they tried to do. I want to credit the Northwest kids and coach Scarberry."

Pressure by the Pirates changed the flow of the game as Northwest went from the 1:10 mark of the third quarter to the 1:08 mark of the fourth quarter without a point.

"We executed on the offensive end and did all those things well," Scarberry said. "We got it where we needed, stepped up and knocked down shots. It wasn't until they tried to speed us up a little bit we made some poor decisions. That's when bad luck sets in and you don't get the loose ball, you don't get the rebound and that stuff works against you."

The crowd was one of the factors working against the Mohawks as they saw their lead evaporate.

"Our crowd was great in that run," Barrick said. "The place was electric. On their side, when they were on a run, their side was electric.

"It was just a tremendous gutsy performance by our kids. They stayed in the game, as bad as it looked for almost three quarters, we didn't give up hope. We kept playing."

Both teams will be in action at home on Tuesday. Northwest will have a chance to play before its home crowd for the first time this season when it hosts North Adams while Wheelersburg will take on Portsmouth.

CHRIS DUNHAM can be reached at chrisdunhamjr@aol.com.

Northwest 18 13 14 5 — 50

Wheelersburg 19 4 10 26 — 59

Northwest — Kr. Crabtree 6 1 18, Lelie 7 2 16, Ke. Crabtree 3 1 7, Hall 2 1 6, Blankenship 1 0 3. Totals 19 5 50.

Wheelersburg — Stegman 10 2 22, Lang 6 5 19, Bendolph 3 3 10, Ballard 2 0 4, Ward 1 0 2, Miller 1 0 2. Totals 23 10 59.

3-pointers — Northwest 7 (Kr. Crabtree 5, Hall, Blankenship); Wheelersburg 3

(Lang 2, Bendolph).

Records — Northwest 1-1 (0-0); Wheelersburg 2-1 (0-1).