Maine West upsets defending champ Geneva at Wheeling Hardwood Classic

School is out for the holidays, so Maine West senior forward Jacob Riedl gets a pass for not being totally up on his history.

Moments after Maine West took out Geneva 47-42 in the second game of the day in the Wheeling Hardwood Classic on Monday morning, Riedl was asked if he and his boys basketball teammates were especially pumped up about the win since Geneva is the defending tournament champion.

The Vikings won the 2018 Hardwood Classic last season.

"They did?" Riedl asked with a sheepish smile.

Riedl and the Warriors seemed more concerned about their own future rather than their opponents' past. Maine West had struggled to a 2-6 start prior to the Geneva game and was desperate not only for a win but to play well.

"We haven't been playing particularly well lately," said Riedl, who scored a game-high 19 points on 3-of-4 shooting from 3-point range. "We've been in close games but just haven't finished. But now, after this game, hopefully, we're starting to get over the hump and we can start winning games."

Maine West was down after the first quarter (18-13) and at halftime (28-23) but put together a strong third quarter to take a 34-33 lead into the fourth quarter. The Warriors used some disruptive traps in the frontcourt that forced Geneva into some bad passes and turnovers.

Maine West took control in the fourth quarter off some big defensive plays by Jared Pearson, who scored off a steal and had 5 of his 10 points in the quarter.

"We wanted to change up the pace. We didn't want to just let them run their stuff, because they run really good stuff," said Maine West coach Tom Prokopij, whose team is now 3-6 overall. "We are excited because as of right now, we're 1-0 in this Christmas tournament and we're looking at it as we're 1-0 to start the rest of the season, because we had a really rough start to the season and it was rough to get that third win."

Sean Collins added 8 points for Maine West.

Meanwhile, senior guard Drew Johnson topped Geneva with 14 points. He was the only player to reach double-figures for the Vikings.

Josh Preston added 9 points for the Vikings, and is essentially the only player returning who got significant minutes last year.

So essentially, the Vikings (5-4) are a much different team from the one that won the Hardwood Classic last year and defeated Fremd in the championship game.

"We have some inexperienced guys and we just didn't take care of the ball today," Geneva coach Scott Hennig said. "We lost everyone but one kid from last year. Our lower levels were good last year, but varsity is different now.

"I thought we were pretty good in the first half, but just too many mistakes in the second half. We just need to keep getting better. This was a good test for us."