Leading 31-30 at halftime on Tuesday, Tommy Nyquist hit two 3-pointers in a 15-8 third quarter to extend the lead to eight points. Braylon Barnes scored six of his game-high 18 points in Warren’s 13-2 fourth to put the game away.

“I thought playing DuBois before this game got us back into the mindset of how physical the game was going to be,” said Warren coach Jeff Berdine, whose Dragons improve to 16-5 overall and 6-3 in the region. “Simple as that. We gave up 10 points in the second half — two in the fourth. That’s great; the kids were working hard… I had told them, ‘if you expect this game to be anything but a dogfight coming down to the end, you’re in the wrong locker room because that’s how they’re going to play.'”

At the end of the first quarter, the game was knotted at 18-18 with Oil City breaking the Warren press several times. Ethen Knox had 8 points in the quarter and Will McMahon and Chase Malet had 5 each, including 3-pointers. For Warren, Barnes, Brady Berdine and Chase Sitler had 4 points each in the quarter and Konnor Hoffman and Logan Crissey hit 3-pointers.

Buckets were a little harder to come by as the game progressed, especially for Oil City.

Photo by Mark Evans Warren’s Logan Crissey shoots with Oil City’s Ethen Knox defending in the Dragons’ 59-40 Region 6 win on Tuesday at Warren Area High School.

“There are some teams we play, and Oil City is the same way, there’s things they do well that you have to adjust to — one of them is they’re physical and two, they rebound the heck out of the ball,” said Coach Berdine. “For us to have a chance, we have to be that way… We started in the second quarter, and it really built up the momentum.”

After a three-game winning streak and having won 10 of 11, Class 3A Oil City is now 16-5 overall and 7-2 in Region 6 with a final game at first-place 3A Franklin (17-4, 9-0) on Friday. Knox was the only Oiler in double figures for the game with 10 points.

In addition to Barnes’ 18, Hoffman finished with 11 points (three 3-pointers), Crissey nine, and Nyquist and Sitler eight apiece for 4A Warren. The Dragons host Corry (13-8, 3-6) in their regular-season finale on Friday.

“All of the good teams we’ve played after December, we’ve lost to — close loss to Franklin, close loss to Franklin, close loss to Oil City, close loss to Erie High, close loss to DuBois,” said Coach Berdine. “So, you have five close losses, but once again, we want to win a couple of those and get some momentum and feel that.”

OIL CITY (40)

Photo by Mark Evans Warren’s Tommy Nyquist gets off a third-quarter buzzer-beating 3-pointer.

Knox 5 0 10, Stinson 0, Malet 3 0 8, McMahon 4 0 9, Heise 0 2 2, Hargenrader 1 0 2, Donald 4 1 9, Liederbach 0. Totals 17 3-6 40.

WARREN (59)

Corbett 0, Sitler 3 2 8, Berdine 2 1 5, Crissey 4 0 9, Nyquist 3 0 8, Barnes 8 2 18, Hoffman 3 2 11. Totals 23 7-8 59.

3-pointers: Malet 2, McMahon, Crissey, Nyquist 2, Hoffman 3.

Oil City 18 12 8 2 — 40

Warren 18 13 15 13 — 59