Maine West shares wealth in romp

Even as Maine West's boys basketball team took complete control of its season opener it never lost sight of doing what was right against Sullivan.

The selfless Warriors kept looking for and finding the open man as they rolled to a 71-30 victory in the opener of their inaugural Warrior Classic played Monday night at Wheeling.

"We feel we have an unselfish team," said Maine West senior Alex Samuelson, who scored his game-high 17 points on 7-for-12 shooting in the first 181/2 minutes. "We want to get everybody the ball and work for the best shot with the best pass possible."

Consider it an opening success on both counts as the Warriors shot 47.5 percent from the field (29-for-61), committed only 9 turnovers and had assists on 10 of their 13 second-half field goals.

Sophomore Conor Hart scored the game's first 5 points to finish with 16 in his varsity debut. Senior Emmett Turner-Jackson led the assist parade with six.

"Our team chemistry is really good this year," Samuelson said.

"One of the things we've talked about is we don't have a go-to guy," said Maine West coach Erik McNeill. "We feel we have nine guys who can play each night and hopefully all of them can contribute.

"The key for us is not turning the ball over against pressure. I thought we did a good job in the half-court and got good shots."

Sullivan was hanging around at a 19-14 deficit when Chris Schiltz (8 points) hit the first of two 3-pointers as Maine West went on a 21-5 burst the final 5:40 of the half.

Chris Garcia finished the first half with a steal and a drive as the Warriors parlayed 19 turnovers into 25 points. Junior Paul Solka added 8 points and junior Odera Eneogwe had 12 rebounds in their 39-24 advantage.

"I think we came into this game pretty confident and we worked well as a team," Samuelson said.

The Warriors hope it's a consistent theme this season.