GOING UP — Big Red’s Aiden Davis goes up for a layup past Wheeling Park’s Sincere Saunders-Paige during Wednesday’s game inside the Crimson Center. - Andrew Grimm

STEUBENVILLE — Coming off its first loss since opening night less than 24 hours prior and off to a slow start against Wheeling Park on Wednesday, Big Red head coach Mike Haney was hoping to see his team get going.

Get going it certainly did.

After holding a two-point lead following a low scoring opening quarter, Big Red started the second quarter on a 15-0 run and never looked back, getting right back in the win column with an impressive 63-37 take down of the visiting Patriots inside the Crimson Center.

“Our defense really picked up in the second quarter,” Haney said. “They were slowing it down in the first, just kind of holding it and running their offense and we were staying back guarding them but not putting pressure. The second quarter we started putting pressure on them and getting turnovers, then turning the turnovers into layups and after that we started hitting our shots. Once we start hitting them they can fall in a hurry, but it all started with the defense. The better our defense is, the better we shoot.

“It’s a great bounce back, that was a great thing about playing again so quick — we didn’t have a week or five days to wait and think about it, we got to get right back at it.”

Big Red, now 13-2 on the season and playing back-to-back days after a nine-day layoff, turned a 9-7 lead after one into a 24-7 advantage midway through the second quarter. After Park (3-8) made a couple of buckets to get within 15, Steubenville rattled off another nine-straight points to push the lead back out, ultimately holding a 33-15 advantage at halftime.

In the third quarter, the Patriots again got within 15, but again Big Red had an answer, this time hitting 3s on its final four possessions of the third, Tre’Von Wiggins knocking down two of his three in the game on the 12-0 spurt that put Big Red up 27 going to the fourth.

That run continued into the fourth all the way to 23-2, capped by another 3 from Wiggins to make the advantage 36 before both teams made wholesale substitutions.

“The first quarter was according to plan, but they got going after that,” Wheeling Park head coach Michael Jebbia said. “They fly around and they have great split speed, it’s tough to simulate that in a walk-through. They have a great team, they’re guard oriented and it’s a tough match up. Our kids I thought fought in the second half.

“You can’t simulate playing teams like this in practice, there aren’t many teams on our schedule, outside of Morgantown, that provide the kind of pressure they do, and they have five quality scoring options.”

Big Red was led by 18 points and seven rebounds from Aiden Davis against his old team, while Wiggins netted 17 and Will Taylor tallied 10 points and nine rebounds.

Park, which made more 3s (seven) than shots for two (six) in the game, got 14 and a pair of triples from Josh Huffman. Jay Bordas pulled down seven rebounds, though Big Red nearly doubled-up the Patriots (30-16) on the boards.

“We wish Steubenville nothing but the best the rest of the way,” Jebbia said. “Aiden Davis was a great player for us, he led us to two state tournaments we wish him the best and them the best moving forward.

“Hopefully this game will help us moving forward as we’ve got some more even games coming up on our schedule after being an underdog a few in a row, here.”

UP NEXT

Wheeling Park: Returns home to host East Liverpool on Friday night.

Big Red: Travels to Dover on Friday night.

Big Red 63, Wheeling Park 37

WP 7-8-9-13 – 37

BR 9-24-18-12 – 63

WHEELING PARK (3-8): Whitmore 1 2-2 5; Bordas 0 0-0 0; Huffman 6 0-1 14; Beck-James 3 0-0 7; Williams 2 0-0 6; Simon 0 0-0 0; Saunders-Paige 0 2-3 2; Bryd 1 0-0 3; Campbell 0 0-0 0; Creighton 0 0-0 0; Stein 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 13, 4-6; 37.

BIG RED (13-2): Davis 6 4-5 18; Haney 2 0-0 5; Wiggins 7 0-0 17; C. Bowers 3 1-1 7; Taylor 5 0-2 10; Hinton 1 0-0 3; L. Bowers 0 0-0 0; Adams 0 0-0 0; Boni 0 0-0 0; Simon 0 1-2 1; Rea 1 0-0 2; Gulan 0 0-0 0; Edwards 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 25, 6-8; 63.

3-POINTERS: Wheeling Park 7 (Huffman 2, Williams 2, Whitmore, Beck-James, Boyd); Big Red 7 (Wiggins 3, Davis 2, Hinton, Haney). REBOUNDS: Wheeling Park 16 (Bordas 7); Big Red 30 (Taylor 9).