Wildcats shipwreck Vikings

By PAUL ADKINS, Sports Editor
Published: Friday, March 16, 2007 4:19 AM CDT
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Logan's Brantz O'Briant, right, drives to the basket against Petersburg's Casey Vance, on Thursday morning during the quarterfinal round of the Class AA boys basketball state tournament in Charleston. AP photo

CHARLESTON - One more win and the Logan Wildcats are in the state championship game.

The Logan High School boys’ basketball team made that a reality with this morning’s 60-42 victory over Petersburg in the Class AA state quarterfinals at the Charleston Civic Center.

With the win, No. 3-seeded Logan (19-6) is slated to play Friday at 11:15 a.m. against the winner of today’s second game between No. 2 Bluefield (21-3) and No. 7 Magnolia (15-9).

Favored Bluefield and Logan split this season with Logan winning 63-62 at home and falling 81-57 on the road.

In other first-round games, Lincoln (18-6), the No. 4 seed, is scheduled to play No. 5 Winfield (15-9) today at 5:30 p.m. in the third quarterfinal.

The last 2A contest tonight pits No. 1 seed Wyoming East (23-1) against No. 8 Oak Hill (16-9).

Logan is making its fourth straight trip to the state tourney and is hoping to win its seventh state title and first since 2005.

Petersburg closed out its season with a 20-5 record.

Logan was led by 6-foot-7 senior center Jonathan Bevins, who had a double-double with 23 points and 12 rebounds. He was 10-of-20 from the floor. Bevins also had three blocked shots.

Jacob Long finished with nine points and a team-best 14 rebounds. He added a steal and an assist.

Brett Sorrell had eight points, two 3s, five boards and four assists.

Chay Gregory added four points, while Patrick Beddow, Brantz O’Briant, Billy Tomblin and Pete Lowery all had three points each. Jordan Calandros and Jordan Butcher netted two each.

Tomblin also had five rebounds and a team-high two steals. Tomblin and O’Briant handed out four assists apiece.

Greg Adams didn’t score but yanked down four rebounds.

Caleb Luther also played but didn’t score.

Petersburg was led by Jon Webster’s 10 points.

Logan was 24-of-59 from the floor for 40.7 percent. The Vikings were only 15-of-54 for 27.8 percent.

LHS outrebounded PHS 53-28.

Leading 22-9 at the half, Logan went on an 11-5 to start the third quarter, forcing Petersburg to call timeout with 5:52 left in the period with the Vikings trailing 33-14. Bevins finished off the run with a tip-in at the 5:55 mark. Bevins fueled the stretch with a jumper in the paint, a layup and another jumper in the lane.

The Vikings tried to make a comeback, cutting the deficit to 33-21 with a 7-0 run but Logan answered with a 3-pointer by O’Briant with 2:46 left and a tap-in by Bevins with 2:19 to go to make it 38-21 Wildcats.

A 3-pointer by Tomblin with five ticks showing on the clock gave Logan a 43-23 lead after three.

The Wildcats led by as many as 22 twice in the fourth quarter at 45-23 and 47-25.

The Vikings could only get to within 16 points the rest of the way as Logan finished off the Grant County team.

Both squads started the game off with first-quarter jitters as neither the Wildcats or the Vikings could get into any kind of offensive rhythm as Logan led just 6-4.

But in the second period the Wildcats went on a 9-0 run, capped off by Sorrell’s 3-pointer with 5:19 to go until halftime. The trey put Logan on top 13-4 and forced Petersburg to call a 30-second timeout.

At the time the Vikings were just 2-of-19 from the field.

A tip-in by Long with 6:02 left had previously put the Cats ahead 10-4.

Then with 3:55 to go until the intermission Sorrell did it again, sinking another 3-pointer from downtown to push the Logan lead to 17-4 and finishing off the 11-0 scoring spree.

With 2:00 remaining until the break, Webster got Petersburg going with an old-fashioned three-point play to trim the Wildcat advantage to 18-9.

At the 1:46 mark, Logan answered with a jumper in the paint by Bevins to make it a 20-9 game.

With 31 ticks to go, Calandros hit a jumper to put Logan ahead 22-9 at halftime.

Neither team’s first-half statistics were very good.

Logan was just 9-of-30 from the field for 30 percent. Petersburg was much worse as the Vikings made only 3-of-25 shots for a miserable 12 percent.

Petersburg was 0-for-13 from 3-point land and were outrebounded by Logan, 29-18.