It was a long wait for the Wheeling Jesuit men's basketball team to erase the sting of a regular season-ending loss to West Liberty. It only took about five minutes for the Cardinals to heal that wound Friday afternoon.
WJU, ranked fourth in the nation, scored the first 12 points of the game, led by 18 at halftime and cruised to a 67-51 win over the Bobcats in the opening quarterfinal game of the Mountain East Conference tournament at the Charleston Civic Center.
WJU, the tournament's No. 2 seed, will play the winner between No. 5 Fairmont State and Notre Dame at 8:15 p.m. Saturday.
Kyle Ritz scored 19 points for the Cardinals (28-2), while Haywood Highsmith notched a double-double with 16 points and 13 rebounds. Wesleyan's MEC first-team member Tanner McGrew finished with 12 points and 11 rebounds, but made just 4 of 15 from the floor.
Jesuit wanted to return to action after its 82-74 loss to the Hilltoppers last Saturday, which gave WLU the national No. 1 spot the Cardinals held and allowed West Liberty to grab a share of the MEC regular-season title with WJU.
"There was a bad taste in our mouths from the previous game," Jesuit coach Danny Sancomb said. "Sometimes teams will put their heads down and lose a little confidence. We're light years away from that. Our guys were disappointed with their performance Saturday and they wanted to play."
Ritz said the Cardinals used that loss as motivation the entire week in between games.
"It built a fire," Ritz said. "We wanted to come out and show everyone we're the best team in the conference and the country. I think we did that pretty well."
With little more than 5 minutes gone in Thursday's game, the Cardinals held a 12-0 lead. Ritz pitched in on that advantage with a pair of 3-pointers, two of his three for the game. The Bobcats (17-13) could make just 5 of 21 shots from the floor in the first 20 minutes.
"I think the biggest difference in the game was those first five minutes," Wesleyan coach Gary Nottingham said. "They just came in, punched us in the face and set the tone."
Jesuit would push that lead to as many as 21 in the second half before WVWC staged a short comeback. The Bobcats hit 5 of 6 shots, Fred Brondsted's 3-pointer with 12:43 left in the game cutting Jesuit's lead to 46-34.
Wesleyan got no closer than 12 points for the rest of the game. After that 5-for-6 flurry, the Bobcats made just 3 of its final 12 shots.
Pat Moseh added 11 points for Jesuit. Brondsted was WVWC's only other double-digit scorer, finishing with 10 points on 2-of-9 shooting, including 2 of 7 from 3-point range. Jesuit outscored Wesleyan in the paint 46-10 for the game.
Friday's win meant more than just a spot in the semis for WJU. The Cardinals could host an NCAA Regional by winning the MEC tournament. While Sancomb admitted he talked about that with the players more than usual this week, the team's goals remained rooted in this weekend's results.
"We wanted [win No.] 28 today," Sancomb said. "[Saturday] we'll want 29 and if we get to Sunday, we'll want 30. Everything else is irrelevant."