Andy Close
WARREN, Pa. – Braylon Barnes scored 25 points as Warren overcame a hot shooting start by Cathedral Prep to earn a 70-62 win.
Prep, which was playing its first game of the season, scored 27 points in the first quarter and led by as many as 11, 29-18 early in the second quarter.
“I thought we were able to weather the storm early,” said Warren coach Jeff Berdine. “The made a ton of shots early. In the past we may have folded our tenet a little bit there early. I give the kids credit because we hung in there. We regrouped and we kept making shots. I thought we kind of started figuring out what they were doing. And I thought defensively we really picked it up.”
Trailing 37-31 at halftime, Warren went on a 19-8 run in the third quarter to go up 50-45 after the third. It was part of a bigger 40-18 run that ended with a Barnes layup with 3:30 to play in the fourth quarter that gave the Dragons a double-digit lead, 58-47.
“We just had to keep our energy going because we knew they were making a lot of shots,” Barnes said during the Cole Orthodontic Associates postgame interview. “We couldn’t keep our heads down. We knew they could shoot the ball.”
See Barnes’ and Tommy Nyquist’s full interview:
Barnes scored 15 of his 25 points in the second half, while Brady Berdine scored 11 of his 17 in the first half.
“That was a great environment for high school basketball tonight,” said Warren coach Jeff Berdine. “A lot of students, a lot of fans in general, they (Prep) brought a good crowd as well.”
Nyquist was also in double figures for the Dragons with 11 points, while Logan Crissey added nine.
Prep, which lost to Exeter 51-47 in last season’s Class 5A state semifinals, was led by Michael Thompson, who scored 11 of his team-high 19 points in the first quarter. Nano Mirarchi and Max Wallace added 15 points each for the Ramblers.
“We purposely schedule like this,” Berdine said. “We have Prep, Brookville, Fairview, Harbor Creek, Salamanca (N.Y.), Olean (N.Y.), Bradford. It’s littered with 3A and 4As that are as good as we’re going to see and get us ready for region play.”
