Gallery by Tina Laney
Oak Hill – Greenbrier East head boys basketball coach Jared Patton really only found one quarter to his liking in the season opening home loss to Beckley Friday night.
Tuesday night inside the Lilly Center against sectional rival Oak Hill, Patton found three quarters that better suited his taste.
Even more appealing for Patton was a fourth quarter explosion that dealt the decisive blow to the Red Devils.
Trailing by 11 points heading into the final stanza, Greenbrier East outscored the home team 31-13 to earn a 65-58 win.
“I challenged the kids. I said (Oak Hill) took the third quarter and they had a great third quarter. They were making their shots and we didn’t make much,” Patton said. “I said it’s our turn. We have to give it right back. We can either lay down and take a loss or we can fight to the end and that is what they decided to do.”
The visitors never trailed in the opening half and led by two points at halftime. However, the third quarter was all Oak Hill.
With the score tied at 27-27, a pair of buckets from Malachi Lewis jump-started a 9-0 run for the Red Devils.
Cole Nelson grabbed an offensive rebound and kicked the ball out to Andre Wright for a triple before Levi Kiszka made it a 36-27 on a run-out that was assisted by Lewis.
The lead ballooned to 13 points late in the quarter prior to Reed McGraw’s bucket in the waning seconds.
The Spartans quickly cut the lead inside double digits to the the final quarter on a drive from McGraw and a score from Gabe Patton off a forced turnover at mid-court.
It was a sign of things to come for Oak Hill which struggled to advance the ball and East feasted on the turnovers.
“We started executing the way we wanted to in the fourth (quarter). We keep changing our lineups and moving and moving, just waiting for the right lineup to get together. We found it there in the fourth quarter,” Patton said. “We just played hard-nosed man-to-man, full court defense. We figured if we could speed them up a little bit, it could cause a couple of turnovers and we could get a couple of easy layups.”
A 3-pointer from McGraw with 3:45 to play, which trimmed the lead to two points, was answered by Lewis with a deuce, but the Red Devils could not evade the rolling tide of Spartan momentum.
“In the fourth quarter, they just pressured our guards. They sped our guards up and made us take some shots that we didn’t want to to take,” Oak Hill head coach Benitez Jackson said. “Then we weren’t getting back on defense and they made some shots there in the fourth.”
A pair of free throws and a strong scoring drive from Brody Hamric tied the game at 54-apiece. The Spartans then regained the lead on a steal from Patton who pitched it ahead for an easy score by Hamric.
“Most of it was run outs where our guards got sped up and we couldn’t run our offense. (Peyton Dehaven) really sped us up and had us doing things we didn’t want to do, making bad decisions,” Jackson said. ” We have to get better guard play and play better complementary basketball. Even in the third quarter when we made some shots, towards the end of the quarter our defense was bad. We let guys just drive right by us.”
Another turnover put the ball in Patton’s hands again where the savvy senior drove to the basket, absorbed the contact and converted a dagger 3-point play.
“As a coach, you try to be as patient as you can be. You are just waiting on your team to start playing well. They played well in the fourth,” Patton said. “I said guys it’s our time. It’s time to get back into it and set the stage right here. The kids responded. We didn’t have that Friday night, but I hope we have it going forward. Everybody chipped in and did their job. We did good on the boards, especially early on and held them to one shot. It was a good team win.”
Losing a sectional game at home is far from ideal, but Jackson also admitted with several new varsity players that the season would be an up and down campaign.
“We really only played one decent quarter and that was the third quarter,” Jackson said. “We finally made some shots and got some easy baskets in transition. We didn’t shoot the ball well all night. In the first and second quarter, and part of the third, I thought we did a good job of keeping them out of the lane and making them shoot.”
“In the fourth quarter we got laxed and we opened up and let guys go right by us,” Jackson reiterated. “It was just bad defense. We just have to play better and find guys that want to defend every possession. We have to play defense which I thought we did for three quarters.”
Both teams are back in action Friday. Oak Hill travels to Liberty, while Greenbrier East is on the road against Hurricane.
GE: 13 9 12 31 – 65
OH: 8 12 25 13 – 58
Greenbrier East
Don Penn 3, Brody Hamric 13, Peyton Dehaven 2, Nathan Dixon 13, Reed McGraw 13, Gabe Patton 11, Layne Lambert 8, Jake Tomlinson 2.
Oak Hill
Armonyi Hicks 2, Andre Wright 5, Levi Kiszka 11, Cole Nelson 8, Malachi Lewis 20, Trevor Kelley 10, Noah McClung 2.
