Parkersburg Catholic's Luke Anderson and Magnolia's Noah Hood battle for the jump ball during the Crusaders' 47-32 Class A, Region I, co-final victory Wednesday night. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

PARKERSBURG — Parkersburg Catholic is back!

For the first time since finishing Class A state runner-up in 2019 as the No. 6 seed, the Crusaders are marking a return trip to the big show at the Charleston Coliseum.

Here Wednesday night in a Region I co-final, the top-seeded Crusaders of third-year head coach Jim McLean overcame an early 8-1 deficit to fifth-seeded Magnolia and punched their ticket with a 47-32 victory.

Preston Randolph led all point-producers with 17, Luke Anderson double-doubled with 12 points and a game-high dozen boards while Leonardo DeAngelo chipped in eight counters with fellow starters Carter Nelson and Branson Lott tallying five markers apiece.

“Zero games my freshman year, going 0-20, this feels great. It’s awesome,” DeAngelo said of finally reaching state. “It’s just a lot of hard work in practice. Obviously it feels great, you know, just coming together as a team, teamwork.

Parkersburg Catholic's Leonardo DeAngelo pressures Magnolia point guard Scott Bailey during the Crusaders' 47-32 Class A, Region I, co-final victory Wednesday night. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

“It’s all about bonding, too. The bonding has been so great. I love all these guys. They’re my brothers. I love all of it. It’s great. I’m just happy to be there, especially from 0-20.”

Kingston Christen, who finished as the Blue Eagles’ fourth all-time leading scorer, opened the game with a 3 for part of his eight points. Noah Hood, who had 13 points and nine caroms, followed with a 3 of his own as MHS pushed in front 8-1.

A 12-9 Blue Eagle advantage after one turned into a 22-19 halftime deficit, but Brayden Byers hit from downtown to open the third 65 seconds in and tied the affair for the final time.

PCHS, which was handed the No. 5 seed and will take on No. 4 East Hardy at 9 p.m. Tuesday in the state quarterfinals, proceeded to get some breathing room with a 9-0 spurt that featured a Nelson 16-foot jumper and a triple as well as a Randolph bucket via a Lott dime.

“We thought we were going to win the whole time,” admitted Randolph, who added five boards and a game-high three steals.

Parkersburg Catholic's Preston Randolph, who scored a game-high 17 points, is fouled by Magnolia's Noah Hood during the Crusaders' 47-32 Class A, Region I, co-final victory Wednesday night. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

“It was a good game and they played hard, but we just played harder I mean. Today we were a lot more aggressive. We just wanted it more. It’s amazing. It feels so good.”

Although PCHS got two Randolph free throws to go ahead 37-29 early in the fourth, no one scored again until Randolph got a turnaround floater to fall with 4:22 remaining when the Crusader got the shooter’s touch as it finally rolled on.

The hosts extended the lead to 43-29 with 2:49 to go after DeAngelo and Anderson converted lay-ins. Magnolia, which missed 12 of 13 shots in the fourth and had nine turnovers after intermission, got its lone conversion on a Christen trifecta that made it 43-32 at the 2:15 mark.

“I’ve been wanting one of these for a long time. Three years,” admitted coach McLean with the cut down net resting on his shoulder. “I’m just so happy for the kids, the boys. I’m happy for the whole Parkersburg Catholic community. This has been a three-year excursion. The boys have been working. It’s not just this year. They’ve been working for many years to get to this point and I’m just so darn proud of them for fighting through a game where we couldn’t find the ball to have it go through the net, and fighting through it.

“What we kind of went this year and we preached a lot early on is learning how to win because there’s going to come a time when the game isn’t pretty that we had to learn how to fight and win games, even ugly ones, and that’s what this was. This was an ugly game. Give credit to Magnolia. They did exactly what they wanted to do. Took us out of what we do. All the credit in the world to them, but that’s what winning is all about and we’ve learned how to do that this year.”

The Blue Eagles of veteran boss Dave Tallman, who had lost nine of 11 entering the postseason but upset Trinity 69-62 in overtime last Thursday to advance, finished with a 9-13 mark and had lost 84-52 to PCHS back on Dec. 30 in New Martinsville.

“We have a magic number and the gameplan worked. Just have to hit shots,” admitted Tallman, whose squad basically played the entire season without point guard Scott Bailey. “We got out to a great start. We always talk about 32 minutes for a lifetime of memories. This was a little different with the hot weather. It was warm in here for my five guys. I thought the officiating was a little … seven to one in the second half man, come on.

“Every 50-50 call went their way. I never talk about officials, but boy I’ll tell you I was begging them. Begging them to help us a little bit. It would’ve been a great group to take to Charleston, but listen. They won their senior night. They won in the Rotary Challenge and they beat River at River so they got some good memories, and went into Trinity and beat them the way they did.”

Bailey tied Lott with a game-high three assists while Byers grabbed six rebounds and Drake Christen five.

On a night when the Little Kanawha Conference runner-up Crusaders shot 38.6% (17 of 44), the defense limited the Blue Eagles to a 30.2% (13 of 43) effort.

“It’s really surreal,” added coach McLean. “I couldn’t do it without the guys that are around me. My coaching staff is phenomenal, the administration, the parents, the supporters of the program. I mean you see the stands.

“There’s 17 guys on the team and there’s five sections of stands that are full tonight. This entire community is just awesome for sticking through it with us and being part of everything we’ve done.”

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com