Photo by Nick Henthorn Wheeling Central’s Eli Sancomb drives to the basket Wednesday against the Linsly Cadets inside the Stifel Field House in the first half of the Maroon Knights’ 73-68 road victory.

WHEELING — Down 15-2 just a few minutes into their contest, it would take a monumental effort for the Wheeling Central Maroon Knights to prevail in their road rivalry game against the Linsly Cadets, the back-half of a doubleheader between the Knights’ and Cadets’ boys and girls basketball teams.

As it turns out, a monumental effort was precisely what was on the menu for Central, in the form of a scorching 47-point outing from junior Eli Sancomb which helped the Maroon claim a come-from-behind 73-68 road victory over Linsly inside the Stifel Field House.

The output was a new school record for Wheeling Central, Sancomb one-upping the previous mark of 46 set by Chase Harler in 2014.

“My mentality was just to play hard and be aggressive,” Sancomb said of his performance. “I’ve put a ton of time into the gym, so I knew it was going to pay off at some point and it did tonight. It was a great team effort, everyone stepped up, Dom Gianangeli especially stepped up and played great for us tonight. It was a great team win, we’ve got a big one on Saturday, Charleston Catholic, we’ve got to be ready for them.”

Sancomb entered the fourth quarter with 29 and shifted into a still-higher gear in the final frame, scoring the first four points to bring Central within two, 52-50. Linsly clung onto their lead through much of the fourth quarter, up by four points or less throughout until Sancomb tied the game 64-64 by knocking down a straightaway 3-pointer with 1:50 to play. Max Olejasz scored inside to give Wheeling Central their first lead of the game, 66-64, but the Cadets’ Ruben Salazar responded the tie the game back up.

Olejasz had knocked down a 3-pointer a minute earlier to bring the game within one, 62-61.

Sancomb sunk another 3 to push Central ahead 69-66, and then drew a charge on defense to get his team possession once more.

Sancomb and Dom Gianangeli each converted two free throws to put the game out of reach.

“I thought we controlled the game throughout the first half and into the second half, until the end there,” Linsly head coach Dave Wojcik said. “We did a good job at the 3-point line all the way until the end where Max hit one and Eli hit one back-to-back. We felt that, if they can’t beat us with 2’s, that they could beat us with 3’s. That’s what happened, they ended up making two 3’s down the stretch, took the lead and the rest is history.”

Sancomb’s prolific scoring output was complemented by eight rebounds, five assists and four steals.

Olejasz had 11 points and Gianangeli had 10 in support.

“He’s definitely our go-to guy,” Wheeling Central head coach Mel Stephens said of Sancomb. “We need other guys to step up and I thought we did today. With Troy [Anthony] going down early, I thought Dom stepped in and gave us a lift, made a big bucket on a cut, played good defense.

“Eli, we needed him to score every single one of those points, but it was a total team effort of sticking together when we were down big, to keep chipping away. Once we got the lead we were very confident we could hold on.”

Linsly went full-blast out of the gate with 15 quick points which set the tone for a 23-8 advantage at the end of the first quarter, and a 38-27 halftime lead.

Helping the Maroon get back into the game was turnovers- a category where Central held a 16-7 advantage by the end of the game. Steals, including several at the top of the key, turned into fastbreak looks for the Knights.

“We feel like we have a team that can pressure a lot of people,” Stephens said. “We got a couple turnovers up top where we got out in transition and we were able to get some easy buckets. It’s still a little bit of a work in-progress, but those guys have the mentality now where we can continue to pressure teams. We’ll get beat a few times but in the long run I think it pays dividends where we can get some turnovers and we can wear teams down.”

Central had whittled the lead down to six going into the fourth.

“We need to stay tough, be strong, stay together,” Sancomb said. “Bad teams could give up when you’re down 15-2, but we came back and won. It was a great team win.”

Linsly was led by 19 points off the bench from Jaxon Murray, who made his return from injury Wednesday. D’arrae Goodwin scored 13 and grabbed 13 rebounds, Salazar had 10 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and two blocks, Uros Petrusic added 10 points and six rebounds while Jackson Bonar scored 10 of his own.

Wheeling Central takes both meetings against Linsly this year, after topping the Cadets at home 71-61 on Jan. 8.

“It’s a city game,” Stephens said. “This is a big game for both of us because of our rivalry. For them, there is no state tournament so it’s a huge game for them and we treat it the same way, it’s a huge game for us. The kids pal around together and see each other, it’s a big rivalry but it’s a good rivalry.”