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‘Curveball’: Williamstown eliminates Ravenswood, 57-48, after power outage leads to site change

By Kerry Patrick 5 min read

PARKERSBURG -- What the darkness failed to do earlier in the evening by trying to put a damper on the Williamstown boys basketball season, Ravenswood nearly accomplished with a miracle type effort in the latter stages of the fourth quarter.

On a night where something happened that the respective head coaches had never experienced covering in the neighborhood of 1,500 games in their careers, a transformer blew out in Williamstown prior to the start of Friday's Class AA, Region I Semifinal and knocked out power in the entire community.

The game was moved to Parkersburg High School where Williamstown defeated Ravenwood 57-48 and left the Yellowjackets perfect against the Red Devils in three games this season.

"In talking with Mick, we have never experienced something like this - that's the first time that has happened to us," Williamstown coach Scott Sauro said. "I told the kids it was an adversity, a curveball. Obviously, we didn't plan for this to happen. Whoever handles that adversity better will have a little bit of an advantage.

"There were no excuses. You just got to play. And I thought our guys did a pretty good job adapting to the change."

Williamstown improved to 11-12 and travels to West Union to play Doddridge County Thursday for the right to play at the state tournament. Doddridge won both meetings between the two teams during the regular season.

"All we want is an opportunity," Sauro said.

The opportunity seemed a bit shaky despite the Yellowjackets taking an 18-point lead over Ravenswood with only 3 1/2 minutes remaining in regulation.

Beginning with one of four 3-pointers on the night from Carson Varney, Ravenswood scored 13 straight points and closed to within 53-48 with 32.8 seconds showing the clock.

Williamstown stood its ground as Dom Strcula and Tyler Keiser each hit both ends of a two-shot foul to extend the gap back to 57-48 by the 16-second mark.

In the final 30 seconds, Keiser partially blocked a shot in the post and teammate Wyatt Powell also got a hand on a deep 3-point try from Varner, who finished with a game-high 32 points.

Ravenswood, which did not return a varsity player from last year, ends the year at 8-14.

"We played Williamtown in Ravenswood, we played them in Williamstown and we played them at PHS - I think if we played them in Waverly they would beat us there too," Ravenswood coach Mick Price said. "They are a nice team. They are young and they play hard. They gave us a lot of problems. We tried to hang in there, but we just couldn't. I was proud of their effort that they put together tonight.

"At the beginning of the year we were curious because none of our guys had ever played together. We didn't have any varsity experience back. It's one of the first times that has happened. They had to learn about the game and how to play together."

Thanks to a Caleb Atkinson 3-pointer one minute into the contest, Williamstown never trailed. On the flip side, Ravenswood stayed on the Yellowjackets' heels as Varney accounted for nine first-quarter points.

After one quarter, Williamstown led 13-10. The Yellowjackets created some breathing room in the back half of the second period with four different Yellowjackets contributing to a 9-2 run which produced their largest lead of the half at 27-16 with just less than a minute remaining in the period.

For Williamstown boys basketball to have success, it takes a village. And the village came through. The bench was responsible for 20 points, including eight from Nate Nicely, who gave a clutch performance in the final three minutes of the third quarter that left the Red Devils trailing 42-27.

"Our gameplan, we get everyone in the rotation, keep everyone fresh and tire the other team out," said Williamstown senior Wyatt Powell, who finished with 12 points - two shy of Atkinson, who led the team with 14 points. "Nate came out with aggression and went off. He went straight to the rim."

Another clutch performance was turned in by Keiser, who dominated the glass and finished with nine points, including a pair of makes during Williamstown's 11-0 fourth-quarter run which gave the Yellowjackets a seemingly insurmountable 53-35 lead at the 3:29 mark.

"Keiser was going strong to the basket," Powell said. "He was having good moves and even got the free throw line and knocked those down."

Coach Sauro's expression turned to that of concern down the stretch as Ravenswood chipped away at the deficit.

"I thought we played 28 1/2 minutes of really good basketball -- I was really proud of the guys," Sauro said. "They were pretty locked in for being under difficult circumstances. I thought our defensive intensity was good.

"We have to do a better job of time and score there at the end of the game. We didn't do that today, but you know what our season isn't over. We still get to keep playing."

The chaos from earlier was a distant memory. From the soloist who sang the National Anthem acapella to the Williamstown student body providing a major assist by completing the last third of the song when the gym went dark from the power outage.

When the transformer went out at 6:56 p.m. (four minutes prior to the scheduled opening tip), administrators went into Plan B mode and contacted Parkersburg High School principal Jason Potts, who accommodated the request without a hitch -- telling Williamstown principal Jill Bryant to give his custodial crew five minutes to get the gym ready at Memorial Fieldhouse.

Everyone in attendance at Williamstown High School made the commute to Parkersburg and one hour and 15 later, the game began at PHS.

Contact Kerry Patrick at kpatrick@newsandsentinel.com

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