WJU Coming Around
Jesuit Improves to 4-2 in WVIAC

By TRACY WATSON , For The Intelligencer and appears here with permission.

Wheeling, WV, January 18, 2009--- With just two seniors and one junior on its roster, Wheeling Jesuit has a very young men's basketball team.

But after overcoming some near misses early in the season, Coach Danny Sancomb's Cardinals have really come around and Saturday was no exception as Wheeling Jesuit picked picked up another West Virginia Conference victory against struggling Bluefield.

Freshmen Cedric Harris, Obi Ukwuoma and Steve Catich combined for 48 points and always-reliable senior leader Maqsood Harrington dropped in 15 of his own as the Cardinals pulled away late in the first half and never looked back in dropping the Big Blues by an 89-73 margin at the Alma Grace McDonough Center.

The victory moves Sancomb's youthful bunch to 6-7 with an impressive 4-2 mark in conference play.

While Bluefield (1-11, 1-5) managed to keep things close early, and even managed a 32-32 deadlock with 6:06 to play, the Cardinals were able to hit their stride and fly away for another victory.

Wheeling outscored its guests by a 14-7 margin to close the first half before using a 16-5 spurt to all but put things away to begin the second half. In all it was the 30-12 run during a 13:06 span late in the first half to nearly midway into the second that sealed the deal.

''We have struggled early on in our last couple games, but we managed to get things fixed and come on,'' Sancomb mentioned. ''Once we started opening up the court we had very little trouble scoring, but I think we still need to work on our defense.

''I think anytime we hold the other team to around 70 points we have a good chance of winning the game. We did a good job distributing the ball on offense and getting open shots, especially in the second half.''

Harris, a Zanesville High graduate, finished with a team-high 18 points and 10 assists while Ukwuoma and Catich joined Harrington with 15 apiece. Ukwuoma also capped off a double-double with a team-high 14 rebounds.

Shooting was a big key for the Cardinals, who finished with a 36 of 68 showing, good for nearly 53 percent from the field while holding Bluefield to just 25 of 63 for just under 40 percent.

Brian Tingle paced the Big Blues with game highs of 19 points and 15 caroms while Raylon Almon finished with 17 points, Jerome Johnson 12 and Shannon Thomas 11.