On New Philadelphia’s first possession of their Div. II sectional final game against West Holmes, Colton Slaughter dialed up a 3-pointer and buried it.
Obviously that gave the Quakers a quick three point lead over the Knights on Saturday, Feb. 26 at New Philadelphia High School.
The Quakers would never trail after Slaughter’s rocket from downtown and New Philly (18-5) would go on to bounce West Holmes (2-21) from the bracket by a final score of 58-40.
Slaughter, the all-time leader in three pointers made in the long history of Quakers’ basketball, would nail five triples in the game and score 17 points in the win.
Philly senior Carter Vandall went and had himself yet another big-time performance scoring 27 points. Vandall did most of his damage in the paint and with his polished mid-range game.
New Philly will now advance to the Div. II district tournament where they will be paired against John Glenn. That game will be played at Coshocton High School on March 1 and tip-off will be at 7 p.m. John Glenn did work against Zanesville on Saturday winning by a score of 58-47 to move on and face New Philly.
The Knights didn’t have a player reach double figure scoring, but got contributions from all around the horn. Senior Mason Wolfe finished his high school basketball career scoring eight points to lead West Holmes along with fellow senior Zander Shultz who also had eight. Zevin Proper tallied a couple threes and a free throw and finished with seven. The Knights also got five points each from Nate Fair and Sam Sprang.
West Holmes battled back from a 10-5 deficit in the first quarter to get the score to 11-12, but Vandall would just beat the buzzer at the end of the first to give New Philly a 14-11 lead after one period.
In the second quarter Proper nailed one of his two threes to cut the New Philly deficit to just one point again at 22-21. But, just like the last time the Knights drew within just a point, Philly answered with a 7-0 run end the second period and lead 29-21 at the break.
Another 7-0 run to start the third quarter really doomed West Holmes’ chances of moving on the in the state tournament. Vandall hit a jumper from the elbow, Slaughter nailed is only three of the second half and Michael Vickers got a deuce during the run that ultimately put this one away. After the run to start the third New Philly led 36-21.
The Knights wouldn’t get any closer than 12 points when Mason Wolfe hit a layup with 5:12 to play in the game that made the score 36-48. After that, the Quakers would go on yet another 7-0 run and put the game completely out of reach with the amount of time left to play.
Follow @330insiders on Twitter for score updates when New Philadelphia takes on John Glenn.
