Charleston – Thursday morning, fans will file into the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center in anticipation of a cat fight of monumental proportions.
The excitement will be centered around the Class AAA semifinal clash between No. 2 Shady Spring (21-4) and No. 3 Nitro (24-2).
The Tigers advanced to Thursday’s game with a 52-30 win over North Marion to open their tournament run, while the Wildcats erased Sissonville, 65-54 earlier the same day.
Hanging in the balance for the winner is a trip to the state championship game Saturday morning at 10 a.m. against the winner of No. 1 seed Fairmont Senior and No. 4 East Fairmont.
“We got to see them over the summer. Obviously summer ball is not ball in March,” Nitro head coach Austin Lowe said. “We know what they do. They are going to put pressure on us. It will be immense pressure from their guards. They shoot it well and they have one of the top one, two or three players (Ammar Maxwell) in the state. We know we have our hands full.”
Both teams will approach the showdown with different strengths and styles. The ultimate battle will be which team can impose its will on their opponent.
Shady Spring has been a defensive machine in the postseason only allowing an average of 38 points per game.
“Credit to them, they took us out of some of our half-court stuff…,” North Marion head coach Steven Harbert said. “Good defensive teams not only wear you down mentally, they wear you down physically. Some of that stuff took place.”
North Marion committed 22 turnovers against the pressure defense of the Tigers who turned the miscues into 22 points.
“We are going to have to survive it a lot,” Lowe said about the pressure defense from Shady. “This will be a game where my freshman Caylum Thomas can hopefully steal the show. A few teams have done it to us and he has been the “it” factor for us. It changes the way we play because we go a little smaller with him on the floor, but we have to be able to get the ball across half court.”
If the Wildcats can get the ball into the front court, they do possess a size advantage over Shady Spring.
In the victory over Sissonville, Nitro out-rebounded the Indians 40-25, grabbing 15 offensive rebounds which turned into 16 second chance points.
Junior forward Landon Poniatowski, who stands 6-foot-4, scored nine points and grabbed 14 rebounds, while 6-foot-3 junior Ashton Crouch scored 13 points and had nine rebounds. Sophomore forward Timmy Lovejoy had 13 points as well and collected seven rebounds.
The Wildcats scored 36 of its 65 points in the paint Tuesday.
“The biggest thing that broke us down a lot was there dribble penetration,” Sissonville head coach Derek Godwin said. “Getting inside the paint, having us have help-side and leaving our big men, pretty much left us defenseless inside. Their size gave us trouble in each matchup.”
Having lost to Nitro twice in the regular season, Godwin thought he had a game plan to frustrate the Wildcats.
“We didn’t get enough defensive stops. We felt like the key to winning the game was getting out in transition,” Godwin said. “Big floor, bigger players. We thought if it wasn’t early, later on in the second half, we could possibly wear them down.”
If Shady’s defense is clicking on all cylinders, transition scores will be a major concern for Nitro.
“We are a hard matchup for a lot of teams, but a lot of teams are a hard matchup for us. The first six or seven weeks of the season we struggled to get our bigs to guard,” Lowe explained. “They finally bought in. If they get out and guard the way they are capable of guarding and we can control the three (point line) and handle their pressure, we might be able to give them some problems. If we don’t guard, we are in for a long night.”
The Wildcats were below .500 last year and do not have a senior on the roster. It could be said they are playing with house money at this point. That doesn’t mean they will be happy with a loss by any means.
Lowe is also aware that many across the state have already put Shady Spring and Fairmont Senior in the title game. A rematch of the last two title games won by the Polar Bears.
“Who wouldn’t pencil Shady and Fairmont into the final? No disrespect to my guys,” Lowe said. “We have to play with that chip on our shoulder. I have told people that I am tired of hearing about (Zycheus) Dobbs and (Ammar) Maxwell. They are great players, but we need to prove we have some great players too.”
In a wild atmosphere, there will be raucous fans on both sides of the Convention Center. Emotions will run high with so much on the line.
“That is the biggest thing four us, stay composed. We don’t have an Ammar Maxwell. We don’t have a Zycheus Dobbs. We have four or five guys that are capable of scoring anywhere from 10 to 15 to 18 points and that is the way we are going to play,” Lowe said. “That is the way we preach it. I would love to have an Ammar Maxwell or Zycheus Dobbs. We just have guys that share the pie and when we do, we are pretty good. That is the biggest thing.”
