WAVERLY – Wheelersburg now sits in the catbird’s seat in the SOC II. The Pirates broke their tie atop the conference’s standings with Waverly by defeating the Tigers 57-42 Friday in downtown Waverly.

The win takes Wheelersburg to 9-2 on the season and 6-1 in the SOC II. The loss drops the Tigers to 7-3 on the year and 5-2 in the league.

The Pirates 6-foot-5 sophomore Andy Stegman led the way. He had a team-high 19 points, 12 coming before the break and a game-high 17 boards to record a double-double.

“We came out with a lot of energy and played really intense,” Stegman said, “Our defense set up our offense. I got a lot of touches and was able to make a couple moves and make a couple shots.

“This week in practice coach really stressed rebounding, because they are a great rebounding team,” he added. “A lot of their points come off of offensive rebounds so we worked really hard on boxing out.”

Zaide Whitley came up big for the Pirates with 11 points, six coming in the second half.

Waverly was led by its own sophomore leader Harrison Martin, who finished with a game-high 21 points. He also grabbed six rebounds in the losing effort.

Wheelersburg shot well from the field against the Tigers. The Pirates went 21-for-41 (51.2 percent) for the game and also shot 65 percent from the free throw line, knocking down 13 of 20.

At the same time, Waverly was having an awful day from the floor going 13-for-39 (33.3 percent) in the contest.

After going into the locker room up by a deuce, the Pirates came out of the locker room with a confidence that the Tigers could not match nor extinguish.

“I thought the kids came out of the locker room with a lot of confidence,” Wheelersburg coach Tom Barrick said. “We came down here and they are a very difficult team to match up with. (Waverly) has tremendous size, tremendous athleticism, they are very difficult to match up with.

“(Coming out of halftime) our kids felt comfortable and thought they were going to be able to compete and we played hard. In the third quarter we were able to force some turnovers and hit a few shots,” Barrick added.

Waverly did not connect on a field goal in the second half until less than a minute to go in the third quarter. Even though the Pirates did not light up the scoreboard in the third quarter, they did construct a nine-point lead heading into the final eight minutes.

The Tigers went 1-for-12 from the field in the third quarter and only tallied four total points. The Pirates went 5 of 11 and scored 11 points in the third quarter.

In the fourth quarter things went from bad to worse for the home team. Just a minute and half in, the lead had ballooned to 12 and the Tigers still could not find the shooting touch.

The lead would never again drop into single digits. The Pirates led by as much as 16, before the final margin was decided.

BRET BEVENS can be reached at (740)-353-3101 ext. 242

Wheelersburg 10 14 11 22 - 57

Waverly 8 14 4 16 - 42

Wheelersburg – Warner 0 2 2, Whitely 4 2 11, Schankweiler 1 1 3, Miller 2 2 6, Kemper 1 3 5, Ward 3 1 7, Craigmiles 1 1 3, Stegman 9 1 19: Totals: 21 13 57.

Waverly – Roback 2 27, Blanford 0 1 1, Lundin 1 2 4, Remy 1 0 3, Kretzer 2 0 5, Martin 7 7 21, Robertson 0 1 1; Totals: 13 13 42.

3-pointers – Wheelersburg 1 (Whitley); Waverly 2 (Remy, Kretzer)

Record – Wheelersburg 9-2 (6-1); Waverly 7-3 (5-2)