Bellwood-Antis coach Tim Keech informed B-A junior Tyler McClellan that he would need to depend heavily on him in the varsity game against Glendale. McClellan celebrated his birthday with a lot of court time in a 66-48 Bellwood-Antis victory.
“We talked to him before the game and Aaron Bell was having some problem with his knee,” said Keech. “I told Tyler ‘You’re going to have to play a lot more tonight. I know you played a lot in the jayvee game, but Aaron is just having some trouble. When he thinks he has to come pout, he’s going to let me know.’ And boy, Tyler just stepped it up tonight. We have been waiting for that. We saw some of it this summer, but growing into varsity basketball, and the speed that you have to go at, he at times, I think, was overwhelmed. To his credit, he kept working hard at practice. He kept trying to do the things coach Stinson and I have been working with him. Tonight it just all came together for him. I hope he can use this as a springboard for the rest of this season and for next year.”
McClellan scored a personal best 17 points on his 17th birthday, including 11 points in the first half to keep the Blue Devils ahead and ended the third quarter by blocking a Glendale shot that could have provided momentum for the Vikings coming out to begin the final stanza.
Paul Greiner, who finished with 15 points and six rebounds opened the scoring and a Shawn Weiand trey and Matt Plummer rebound and putback and the first of a trio of three-pointers by McClellan got the Blue Devils off to a 10-4 lead early. After Glendale battled back to cut the deficit to three, 13-10, Weiand fired in a three-pointer at the buzzer for a 16-10 opening quarter B-A advantage.
Glendale tried to make a comeback in the second period. But Weiand hit a pair of free throws and McClellan added the final eight points for the Blue Devils, stealing the ball and putting up a trey, then hitting two shots from the foul line and finally firing in another trey to blunt the Glendale comeback. The Vikings outscored B-A in the quarter, 11-10, with Bellwood-Antis in the lead, 26-21 at the half.
Bellwood-Antis went on a six-point run to open the third quarter with Greiner, tossing in a pair of buckets, sandwiched around one by Weiand to open a 32-21 lead.
Weiand took over in the middle of the quarter, tossing in a long three-pointer, going coast-to-coast for a layup, knocking in a bank shot and finally tossing in a short jumper from the side. Bill Peoples, who led Glendale with 20 points, tried to rally the Vikings near the end of the period with a basket and four of five foul shots, but McClellan blocked Glendale’s last second shot to keep his team in front by a dozen 47-35.
After Peoples cut the margin to 10 with a basket to begin the fourth quarter, Weiand hit one of three when fouled from beyond the three-point line and added buckets on three straight trips down court. Mark DelGrosso added his only basket of the night and Greiner hit a turnaround jumper to stretch the B-A lead to 16, 58-42.
The two teams traded buckets for the final dew minutes, until McClellan added four of four from the free throw line to set the final score.
“For the mindset of the younger guys, this win was extremely important,” said Keech. “We had just lost five in a row. I thought we played extremely well in the game against Everett (double overtime loss) on Monday night. We came into tonight wanting to maintain that enthusiasm. We are getting better, not making the same mistakes we made at the beginning of the year. After the game going into the locker room and talking to them and looking at them, I think the win was bigger than I thought it was at first.
“We knew coming into the year, we were going to struggle until people got comfortable with their roles. I think they are really starting to understand what they have to do for us to be successful as a team. As long as they continue to do that, we are going to be fine.”
Bellwood-Antis (5-13) hosts Juniata Valley on Friday. The Junior varsity game will start at 6 p.m. and the varsity will follow at 7:30 p.m.
Junior Varsity
Bellwood-Antis defeated Glendale 38-30 in the junior varsity contest for their second win in the last three games to improve their record to 4-11.
Tyler McClellan led the B-A Jayvees with 10 points, Chris Edmiston added nine, Brandon Boone chipped in eight and Tony DelGrosso scored seven points and pulled down nine rebounds.
Billy Ball had seven points for Glendale.
Bellwood-Antis 66 Glendale 48
GLENDALE – Peoples 8 4-5 20, Kaufman 1 1-2 3, Laing 1 0-0 2, Hollis 1 0-0 2, Lyons 4 4-4 12, Yeckley 1 0-0 2, Krestar 3 0-0 6, R. Ball 0 0-0 0, Thomas 0 0-0 0, Cherish 0 1-4 1, Bainheart 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 19 10-15 48.
BELLWOOD-ANTIS – Bell 0 0-0 0, McClellan 3 8-9 17, Weiand 7 3-4 26, M. DelGrosso 1 1-2 3, Greiner 6 2-2 15, Plummer 2 1-3 5, Blazier 0 0-0 0, Edmiston 0 0-1 0, McCracken 0 0-0 0, Brunner 0 0-0 0, Boone 0 0-0 0, T. DelGrosso 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 22 14-20 66.
Score by Quarters
Glendale 10 11 14 13 – 48.
Bellwood-Antis 16 10 21 19 – 66.
Three point goals: Glendale 0.
Bellwood-Antis 7 (Weiand 3, McClellan 3, Greiner 1).
