Lake County Sentinel
Blue Devils cruise with Cable's 40 to senior night win over Conneaut 83-67
BY TIM SHIRER
SPORTS EDITOR
(WICKLIFFE, OH) - On Friday Night at the Campus of Wickliffe in the Blue Gymnasium the Wickliffe Blue Devils (6-13, 5-6 CVC) boys basketball team celebrated senior night. They honored their three seniors Ryan Latkovich, Anthony Shaw and Zain Zimmerman as well as two Conneaut Spartans (4-16, 0-14 CVC) seniors J.R. Hutchinson and Chance Loomis. Wickliffe junior Walt Cable failed to realize the night belonged to the seniors as he stole the show, scoring a Wickliffe boys record 40 points as the Blue Devils defeated the Spartans 83-67.
What made the night for Cable even more incredible is he scored the 40 points in the final three quarters after not having an accurate first quarter shooting missing the shots he took. Latkovich had the hot hand for the Blue Devils in the first quarter, scoring ten points including two three pointers. Meanwhile Loomis had 11 points for the Spartans in a back and forth first quarter where the lead changed a couple times, and the Spartans held a 15-14 at the end of the first eight minutes.
Then the second quarter began, and Cable took over the show. The lead changed three times in the first 4:04 of the quarter and the Spartans led 28-23 with 3:56 left on the clock. Over the remainder of the period, starting with two free throws by Cable with 3:31 left on the clock the Blue Devils went on a 15-2 run. The Spartans did end the half on with a three pointer by junior Noah Hamm with no time left. Hamm gestured toward the Wickliffe bench after making the three and many in attendance were not happy about it. The three officials did not see the gesture, so no action was taken, and Wickliffe took a 38-33 lead into the halftime break. Loomis led all scorers at the break with 20 points, Cable led the Blue Devils with 11.
Things remained close in the third quarter as the Spartans cut the Blue Devils lead to 54-51 with :34.1 left in the quarter when Hutchinson hit one of two free throws after being fouled. When the quarter expired the Blue Devils led 38-33. Wickliffe scored 21 points in the quarter aside from a jumper by junior Jimmy Wheeler at the 5:45 mark and a layup by Wheeler with 5:05 left and a layup by sophomore Jimmie Feaster, Cable scored the other 15 points for the Blue Devils and now led all scorers with 26 points. Loomis was pacing the Spartans with 21 points and needed only nine more points to reach the 1,000-point mark in his career.
After Hamm cut the Wickliffe lead to 60-56 with 6:10 on the clock in the final quarter Wickliffe went on a 21-8 run over the next 5:09 to seal the win 83-67. Cable had 14 of the Blue Devils’ 24 points in the final period to finish with 40 points breaking the old record of 39. Loomis finished the game with 26 points, five shy of 1,000.
Cable said after the game that he told Blue Devils Head Coach Marc Lewis when the first quarter ended that he was going to keep shooting because he was going to get hot, and he did just that in the impressive effort. Lewis commented that he had confidence in Cable, and he knew he would get on track.
Wickliffe began the season 0-6 and have gone 6-7 since, including a 5-6 record in the Chagrin Valley Conference.
The Blue Devils will play their final regular season game of the year on Tuesday night at the COW at 6:45 pm .
tshirer@lakecountysentinel.com follow Tim on Twitter @TBBucsTim or follow us on Twitter @LCSentinelcom
POSTED 02/16/2023 01:35
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Wickliffe's Walt Cable guards Conneaut's Chance Loomis. Photo by Rebecca Shirer
