WHEELERSBURG — The Wheelersburg Pirates won their sixth-consecutive sectional championship with an 8-2 home victory over the New Boston Tigers on Wednesday night.

The score would indicate that Wheelersburg had their way in the contest but through the early minutes of the second half it was a toss-up.

“The first 50 minutes, it was anybody’s game,” Wheelersburg coach Paul Boll said. “New Boston always comes out and plays hard, and they expect to win.”

The Pirates opened the scoring less than two minutes into the game when Dillan Lewis netted his first of four goals. But the lead did not last. The Tigers responded just three minutes later with a goal by Steven Russell.

The score remained tied until six minutes before the half. The Pirates went ahead 2-1 when a throw-in by Cole Miller found Kyle Brooks who dribbled through defenders before he kicked it inside the left post.

New Boston came out strong in the second half and was looking to challenge the Pirates when Tiger Shane Buckley evened the score 2-2.

“We knew if we kept it close early on we’d have to come with a lot of energy after halftime,” New Boston coach Jon Estep said. “We get a goal to tie it up two-to-two, and we couldn’t have scripted it out any better.”

Unfortunately for the Tigers, that would be their last goal on the night.

Wheelersburg scored back-to-back goals in the 46th minute by Tyler Hughes and Aaron Martin to take back the lead and momentum. Four more goals would follow as the Pirates wore down their opponent.

“With good team like Wheelersburg, you got to play eighty minutes and we weren’t able to to that tonight,” Estep said.

Five different Pirates recorded goals and of their eight total goals, six were scored in the last 34 minutes.

“We were able to kind of out last them,” Boll said. “Braxton Jarvis and Cole Miller did really good jobs inside for us on defense.”

Wheelersburg will move on to face the top-seeded South Webster Jeeps in the district tournament. The Jeeps earned their berth in the district tournament after defeating Ironton St. Joe 6-0 in Wednesday’s sectional title game. The Wheelersburg-South Webster contest is set for Monday at 6 p.m. in South Wester.

New Boston 1 1 — 2

Wheelersburg2 6 — 8

First half — W, Lewis (Brooks) 38:14; NB, Russell (Buckley) 34:37; W, Brooks (una) 6:45

Second half — NB, Buckley (Messer) 37:18; W, Hughes (Fight) 33:46; W, Martin (C.Miller) 33:02; W, Lewis (Brooks) 25:40; W, Lewis (pk) 21:13; W, Jarvis (Hughes) 16:37; W, Lewis (C.Miller) 11:39

Records — New Boston 6-11-1, Wheelersburg 14-4