Griffin Schamp and Wes Caver gave Wesleyan the early lead Saturday.
Their teammates made sure they kept that lead with some timely 3-point shooting as Wesleyan pulled away from Region 7-A rival Providence Christian for a 65-45 victory in the Class A quarterfinals at Marietta High School. Wesleyan advances to the semifinals at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Macon Centreplex.
Wesleyan pulled away with a 9-0 run to start the second half after leading 35-28 at halftime. The key to the run was a four-point possession less than three minutes into the third quarter. Caver made the first of two free throws but missed the second. Wesleyan came down with the rebound and got the ball to Andrew Frerking, who made a wide-open 3-pointer to give Wesleyan a 42-28 lead, its largest of the game at that point, with 5:27 to play in the quarter. It was the only field goal of the game for Frerking, who finished with five points. Carter Brantley also made one of his two 3-pointers during the 9-0 run. Providence got no closer than 11 points the rest of the way.
“Those were back-breakers,” Wesleyan coach Skip Matherly said of the 3-pointers. “But I’ll tell you the big thing in the second half was when we started limiting them to one shot. They’re the kind of team that likes to play with tempo, likes to pass the ball 10, 12, 14 times. Once they got down they had to speed up, and we were limiting them to one shot. That really got them away from their game plan.”
Wesleyan outscored Providence 19-10 in the third quarter to lead 54-38. The Wolves eventually increased the lead to 22 points before settling for the 20-point victory.
“When we started to pull away in the third quarter, we did a good job of keeping our foot on their throat,” Matherly said.
Schamp and Caver scored seven points each to start the game, combining for Wesleyan’s first 14 points, and had 16 of the Wolves’ 21 points in the first quarter, after which they led 21-14. Schamp finished with a game-high 19 points. Caver finished with 12 points, and Shane Smith had 11. Freshman Charlie Scott led Providence Christian with 14 points and made four 3-pointers. Peter Hage added 13.
Wesleyan (24-6) went undefeated in region play during the regular season but came into the game as a No. 4 seed after losing twice in the region tournament. The Wolves, who won the Class AA title in 2008, had beaten Providence twice during the regular season. Providence, which finished 23-7, was a No. 1 seed after winning the region tournament.
“I think losing two in the region tournament sent a much clearer message to these guys than I ever could, and that message is that nothing’s promised to you,” Matherly said. “As a friend of mine said, the tournament is cruel. We’ve refocused now. We’ve had a tough road. Winning at Gordon Lee was no picnic, and winning at Pace certainly was not easy. We were scared to death of this one because you’re trying to beat a good team for the third time, a Cinderella team, a team that has beaten everybody at the buzzer and is believing in themselves.”
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