After football title, Billeter & Barnhart lead St. Marys for basketball run

Joey White for WVMetroNews.com

ST. MARYS, W.Va. – Riding the momentum of a Class A state football championship, St. Marys has been determined to make an appearance in the state basketball tournament.

That football success meant a late start to the basketball season for several key players – and the Blue Devils were challenged right out of the gate with a difficult early season schedule.

“Those first seven games we felt like were going to be indicators for how our season might unfold,” said head coach Mark Barnhart. “We felt like we got out of it in pretty good shape.”

St. Marys went 5-2 in the opening stretch, including a series split with title contender Ravenswood, wins over Tucker County and Williamstown (twice) and a season-opening loss to last year’s state runner-up Wheeling Central.

Continuing to develop a stronger team chemistry, the Blue Devils entered Wednesday having won 14 of their last 16 games for a 17-4 overall record.

“When you see some of the teams we’ve seen, and we see them twice a year in our league, I am a bit surprised (at our record),” Barnhart said.

It has been 6-foot-3 Will Billeter, the quarterback on the football team, leading the way again for St. Marys on the basketball court.

Barnhart attributes much of Billiter’s success to his offseason football lifting program, which has helped him transform his basketball game.

“We noticed when he came back and started playing last spring and summer that athletically he’d gotten a lot better and a lot stronger,” said Barnhart. “I think that paid dividends for him in basketball. He’s a nice target and he may be open when nobody else is.”

Another key piece to the Blue Devil’s success has been Braden Barnhart, who went from scoring touchdowns and collecting tackles in the fall to being the floor general on a disciplined basketball team.

“Braden has come in this year and really done a nice job for us playing the point,” Barnhart said. “On the court he seems to have the confidence to play in and out of traffic, the contact obviously doesn’t bother him, and he seems to see the court well.”

Senior guard Sam Kincaid is another one of the Blue Devils’ leading scorers who also played football.

St. Marys last week was rated No. 7 out of Class A in the MetroNews Power Index as the Blue Devils’ path to the state tournament this year will again come out of Region 1. St. Marys recently made trips to the state tournament in 2009 and 2012.

“It’s very difficult to survive your region and section in Region 1,” said Barnhart. “If you’re lucky enough to survive it, and we got lucky a couple of times and made it, when you get down there, you feel like you have a chance to play with the other teams because of what you’ve seen in Region 1.”

The Blue Devils will enter sectional play against Magnolia, Paden City, Tyler Consolidated and Ritchie County, while the opposing section features Wheeling Central, Bishop Donahue, Madonna, Cameron, Valley (W) and Hundred.

“There will be no easy games,” said Barnhart. “Everything will be a fight to the finish, and you just hope like heck you’re up by one when the game’s over.”