Stingy defense and balanced scoring has been a successful combination for the Bridgeport boys basketball team through the first 24 games of the season and it worked again on the biggest stage yet at the state tournament at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
 
Phoenix Sickles posted a double-double of 20 points and 10 rebounds, Anderson McDougal added 13 points and Landon Sanders had 11 as the Class AAA top-seeded Indians defeated No. 8 Elkins 55-32 to advance to the semifinal round.
 
The Bridgeport defense limited the Tigers to single digit points in each of the first three quarters and gave up just 11 in the fourth. It marked the ninth time this year the Indians have held an opponent to less than 40 points in a game and they have allowed 10 points or less in a quarter now 61 times.
 
"That's a goal we have written on our big board, we want to hold a team to 10 or less every quarter," BHS coach Davie Marshall said. "I got to give credit to Elkins and Coach (Amrit) Rayfield. He coaches them up and they make things hard on you because they have a lot of patience on offense. They can make you play ugly.
 
"But I thought our guys rolled up their sleeves and went to work on defense."
 
BHS, now 24-1, also extended its overall win streak to 21 games and picked up its first victory on the Coliseum floor since 2016.
 
The Indians will face a familiar foe in the semifinals as another Big 10 school, Fairmont Senior, awaits. Bridgeport swept the regular-season series with the Polar Bears with 53-35 and 56-38 victories.
 
"We're going to prepare for them like it's the first time we will be seeing them," Marshall said.
 
After Drew Hinzman scored to give Elkins a 2-0 lead, the Indians came back with two from Sickles and 3s from McDougal and Sanders to take a six-point lead and they never looked back.
 
Sickles drained a 3 at the 6:17 mark of the second quarter to extend the BHS lead to 13-4 and force a Tigers' timeout. He then hit another shortly after the timeout and the Indians would go on to outscore the Tigers 17-8 in the second.
 
"They are just so aggressive on defense," Rayfield said. "They put pressure on the ball and everyone sits down and guards. You don't get anything easy from them. That's just what Bridgeport does defensively. And I thought Sickles was huge for them tonight."
 
Elkins slowed the game down enough to limit Bridgeport to 37 field goal attempts. But the Indians shot 49 percent from the floor and 50 percent from 3-point range.
 
Sickles also had a pair of assists and blocked three shots. McDougal added three rebounds, three assists and four steals to his 13 points including two pivotal steals and layups in the second half.



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