The Bellwood-Antis boys traveled to Everett on Monday night for the beginning of a very long, yet very important week for the 2004-05 basketball season. The Blue Devils play four games this week, all on the road, with the outcomes very much involved with their chances in the second cycle of the Juniata Valley League.
Last night, the B-A boys dropped a 52-32 contest to non-JVL Everett, but that was just the beginning. Tonight the Blue Devils travel to Glendale, Wednesday they go to Moshannon Valley and Friday they travel to Juniata Valley. Each of those three games are JVL contests for Bellwood-Antis, who right now stands tied with Glendale and Juniata Valley at the top of the JVL with 2-0 marks in league play.
Everett took control of Monday night’s game early jumping out 16-3 in the first quarter and then added an 18-5 scoring margin in the second period to take a 34-8 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Bellwood-Antis has been hit by a rash of illness and injuries forcing the Blue Devils to play without the services of senior Paul Greiner, who has been the Blue Devils “do everything guy” this season and has been designated “Athlete of the Week”. Several others played through illness and sophomore Paul Christner tweaked his ankle in the junior varsity game and then turned it badly in the varsity contest.
“Playing without Paul Greiner was difficult, especially with the rash of illness we have been fighting. He has put extra effort into the success he has achieved this year. Our team goes as Paul goes.” explained Bellwood-Antis coach Tim Keech. “L. J. Seidel is just getting off his crutches and won’t be available before next week and Tyler Elvey and Tyler McClellan have been playing through illness.
“Everett starts five seasoned veterans, but I can’t believe that they are 20 points better, if we were at full strength. We were hoping that some of the other kids could come through, but although I can’t exactly put a finger on it, maybe it was the long bus ride, we came out cold and couldn’t get much going.”
Bellwood-Antis was able to regroup at halftime and carry the game to the Warriors, allowing Everett to gain just one more point, 25-24 over the final two quarters, but the damage was done already.
Blaze Winterstein came off the bench to lead the Blue Devils with 11 points and Adam DeArmitt added nine for the Blue Devils, who converted 11 of 15 shots from the foul line. B-A put in just nine shots from the field however to 24 for Everett.
“We just have to put this one out of our minds and concentrate on the rest of the week. We have three games, starting at Glendale tonight. The games against Juniata valley and Glendale are very important. All of us are undefeated in the second cycle at 2-0 so far. If we could beat them and go to 4-0, and have everybody else have at least one loss in the cycle, even though we would have five more games left, it would give us one-up on everybody. We can’t let going on the road bother us. Anybody can play well at home, but the I believe the team that wins the second cycle will be the one mature enough to overcome the bus rides and the home crowd cheering for the other team and still win.”
Justin Ramsey led all scorers with 24 points for Everett and Boyd Beegle added 11 points.
The B-A/Glendale junior varsity game at Glendale tonight begins at 6 p.m. with the varsity contest at 7:30.
Everett 59 Bellwood-Antis 32
Bellwood-Antis – McClellan 0 0-0 0, Bell 0 1-2 1, DeArmitt 3 2-3 9, Blazier 0 0-0 0, Christner 1 0-0 3, Boone 3 0-0 6, Edmiston 0 0-0 0, Gonzales 1 0-0 2, Wood 0 0-0 0, Winterstein 1 8-9 11, Hughes 0 2-2 2. TOTALS 9 11-15 32.
Everett – Ramsey 9 4-4 24, T. Shaw 0 1-3 1, Foor 3 1-2 8, Miller 1 1-2 3, Beegle 5 1-3 11, Rakoczy 0 0-0 0, B. Shaw 1 0-0 2, Snyder 1 0-0 2, Kalfas 4 0-0 8, McCahan 0 0-0 0, Grimes 0 0-0 0, Decker 0 0-0 0, College 0 0-0 0, Wait 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 24 8-14 52.
Score by Quarters
Bellwood-Antis 3 5 12 12 – 32
Everett 16 18 14 11 – 52
Three point goals: Bellwood-Antis 3 (DeArmitt 1, Christner 1, Winterstein 1).
Everett 3 (Ramsey 2, Foor 1).
