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The Zane Trace Pioneers and Adena Warriors will square-off in the Division 3 District Semis March 1st at The Convo, after winning sectional crowns Friday. Zane Trace won the Waverly Sectional with a 56-50 decision over Piketon while the Warriors beat Alexander 53-41. Westfall fell to Fairland 48-29.
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ZANE TRACE 56, PIKETON 50
The two SVC schools met for the third time this season, only this time for the sectional title in Waverly, while both teams were red-hot from the field in this shoot-out. The Pioneers shot a robust 22/35- including 6/10 from the arc for 63% while adding 6/8 from the free-throw line. Piketon was 19/34 from the floor- including 7/17 from the arc for 56%. The Redstreaks were also 5/6 from the foul line.
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Zane Trace led at the end of each stop with Piketon leading only once at 6-5. ZT held an 18-12 lead after one quarter, 31-26 at half, and 44-39 after three. Piketon got to within 51-48, but Zane Trace put the game away when Piketon missed 5 of their last 6 three-point tries.
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Zane Trace won the battle of the boards 19-5, with ZT committing 9 turnovers and Piketon 7.
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The Pioneers' Cam Evans led all players with 26 points, while Colby Swain connected for 10. Nick Nesser had 8 points, with Luke Johnson and Triton Davidson each had 6 points. Piketon was led by Levi Gullion had 18 points, 16 in the first half. Piketon's lone senior Tyree Harris had 11, Brody Fuller with 9, 7 from Chris Chandler, 3 from Logan Nichols and 2 from Tra Swayne.
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Zane Trace improves to (20-3) and will play Adena in the district semis at 5:30pm Sunday, March 1st at the Ohio University Convo. Piketon's season closes at (12-12).
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Listen to Mike Smith and Tom Beard in the WKKJ replay on our podcast link found below....
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ADENA 53, ALEXANDER 41
Adena avenged an earlier season loss to the Spartans with a sectional championship win at Jackson High School, to advance to their second straight trip the district tournament.
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This one saw both teams rallying from big deficits, then saw things almost get out-of-hand on the sideline and in the crowd, when the Alexander coach was ejected from the game, two technical fouls were called and the tournament manager stopped the game for almost 10 minutes to warn the crowd "the gym would be cleared to finish the game- IF any more stoppage of play occurred because of bad fan behavior". It was in that period where the Warriors were taking control of the game and went on to a double digit win.
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The Warriors started quickly, racing to leads of 7-0 and 10-2 by the end off the first period. But, Alexander took control of the second quarter for a halftime lead of 19-15. Adena grabbed that momentum back, using a 24-4 run at one stretch for leads of 29-27 after three then carried into the fourth quarter for the final score of 53-41.
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Three Adena players finished in double figures, with Logan Bennett and Preston Sykes leading the way with 12 points a piece, then Jarrett Garrison with 11 and Cade McKee with 9. Sykes also had 10 rebounds.
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Two Spartans players had double-digits of 14 and 10 points respectively.
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Listen to Jacob Wise and Eric Cox on our WKKJ replay in the podcast link found below....
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FAIRLAND 48, WESTFALL 29
Fairland was a heavy favorite in this game, but someone forgot to tell that to the Mustangs. Westfall held close the first three quarters, trailing only 11-5 after one, 19-15 at halftime, and 29-24 after three quarters.
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However, it was the fourth quarter where the Dragons pulled away by outscoring Westfall 19-5 for the 48-29 final.