Gallery by Karen Akers
Charleston – Third time’s the charm.
Meeting in the Class AAA state championship game for the third consecutive season, Shady Spring outlasted Fairmont Senior 58-55 in overtime Saturday in the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center to claim the program’s second state championship in four years.
The victory comes after a pair of heartbreaking losses to the Polar Bears over the last two seasons, decided by a total of six points.
“I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights I’ve had losing two straight championships as a coach, hurting for those guys that have walked out the door,” Shady head coach Ronnie Olson said. “And I promised myself I was going to do everything I could as a coach and I talked to my coaches and we were not going to let it be on us this year. And all I asked for was complete buy in from all those guys and we felt like we let some (frustration) out.”
Coming in as the No. 2 seed in the matchup for the first time, the Tigers were outclassed early after drawing to a 6-6 tie in the first three minutes.
The Polar Bears ripped a 10-0 run over the final 5:07 of the opening frame, taking a 16-6 advantage into the second quarter. The damage was mostly administered by guard Andre Grant who scored the first nine points for the Polar Bears. A pair of layups from Darrell Claybrook and a 3 from Julz Butler accounted for the bulk of the run.
The Tigers weathered the storm and settled in early in the second quarter.
Ammar Maxwell was fouled on a three-point attempt early in the second quarter and converted on all three of his charity stripe attempts. Jack Williams kept the comeback rally alive with a transition trey just 30 seconds later.
The chipping continued until the halftime buzzer as Fairmont attempted to run the final 1:48 of the half out. A steal by Williams who hit Khi Olson for a layup before the buzzer brought the Tigers back to within two at 23-21.
“I’m not gonna lie, we took a timeout and our guys, we were a little concerned,” Olson said. “But I said, ‘Guys, look at me, look at me. We are the best defensive team in the state of West Virginia.’ And we said it consistently – ‘Guys, we’re gonna get stops.’ All of those points, I would love to chart them. I know you’re gonna chart them coach (Shawn Radford). How many came off our own turnovers? It wasn’t anything that – now they’re a great defensive team but it wasn’t anything that I felt like they were doing. We were kind of pressing and we were a little nervous. Like I said six out of seven guys were new to play and they were a little nervous. And that’s okay. Then we started getting the flow of the game and 10 was 10, became eight, became 10, became five, became three and three became six and before you know it, were tied up. And I saw that glimmer in their eyes man.”
Fairmont extended its lead to seven again in the third after a Zycheus Dobbs three. In need of a hero, Jalon Bailey answered the call for Shady. He scored 10 of his team-high 18 points in the third quarter, giving the Tigers another option aside from Maxwell and Williams.
“I think Ammar and Jack, (Fairmont) had their two best defenders on them so I knew I had to make a play,” Bailey said. “We were down, I knew we needed a spark so I just tried to step up.”
“He just dribble penetrated and took the ball to the basket,” Fairmont Senior head coach Dave Retton said. “That was you know, he’s very good. He’s very good. And we got to him late at times. We didn’t stop the ball early enough. And he got too deep and you know, he’s shooting eight-footers, nine-footers 10-footers.”
The spark lit a fire for the Tigers who ripped a 10-0 run across the third and fourth quarters to take a 43-38 advantage with 6:07 to play.
Dobbs, who was limited to just two points in the first half, took over, scoring eight straight points for his team, helping them to a 48-45 advantage with 2:56 to play.
Chaos ensured afterwards but Shady survived it, getting a pair of free throws from Maxwell and a layup from Gavin Davis to tie the game at 49 with 37 seconds to play in regulation.
A Fairmont turnover with five seconds to go, courtesy of a charge drawn by Davis, set the Tigers up with a chance to win. Then they returned the favor, allowing the Polar Bears to nab the pass on the inbounds play.
In the chaos, Williams made a game-saving play, deflecting a post-entry pass meant Dobbs with 2.1 seconds left. With another look, Grant’s jumper from the left wing fell short at the buzzer, sending the game into overtime.
Both Maxwell and Dobbs entered overtime with four fouls and picked up their fifth with under a minute to play. But accustomed to playing without Maxwell for stretches during the season, the rest of the Tigers shined. They made 9 of 10 free throws, accounting for all of their points in the extra period.
Williams’ pair with 1:07 to go gave the Tigers the lead for good while Bailey knocked down four more over the next 31 seconds, giving his team a three-point lead each time.
Williams did the final honors, knocking down the final free throws of Shady’s season to give it a three-point lead. Defense took care of the rest over the following nine seconds, denying Grant’s tying three-point attempt.
“Ammar was upset and rightfully so when he fouled out but he looked at me, he was almost in tears, weren’t you son? ” Olson said. “And I said, ‘I got you. We’re gonna win a state championship.’ We’re gonna win the state championship. I said, ‘Jackie got you. Jalon got you. Gavin got you. Khi (Olson) got you. Brody (Radford), he got you. Braedy (Johnston) got you. We got you.’ And they took it and they took it. What a freaking grind. What a state championship! I can’t wait to watch it again. It’s hard for me to watch those games the last two years but we’ve learned from them.”
Defensively the Tigers excelled against the Polar Bears’ top scorers. Dobbs finished with 15 points, 13 of which came in the second half and overtime. Tre Cumberledge, who scored 20 against Shady when the two teams played earlier this season, was limited to one point and four shot attempts after scoring 31 combined in the first two games of the tournament.
“Guard your yard,” Olson said of the defensive game plan. “Basketball, it’s pretty simple. You guard your guys and space. You work to keep them in front of you and it’s going to be hard to score and Ammar did a tremendous job on Dobbs all night. Dobbs did a tremendous job on Mr. Maxwell. What a heavyweight battle on the offensive and defensive end! I mean that. Some guys were cramping up. Ammar was cramping in the shoulder. I mean, it was, they just went at each other. And for us defensively we know where it starts and begins. We got down, we took that timeout and we looked at each other and I said ‘Guys, we defend at such a high rate. What do we say? We defend that a high rate.’
“When you defend at a high rate good things will happen and they have bought into that and they did and we chipped away and we chipped away and we chipped away and we chipped away. And we knew eventually offensively, we would get going. And we did and we started to loosen up the defense. And I’d rather play good at the end of the game than the beginning because it was opposite of what we did last year, and they took that game so that was a great defensive effort by all those guys.”
Maxwell finished the final game of his high school career with 14 points, 13 rebounds and a second state championship ring. Williams added 15 points, going 4 of 7 from the field. Grant led all scorers with 28 points in the loss.
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Davis, Maxwell, Williams, Grant, Dobbs and Cumberledge were named to the all-tournament team. They were joined by East Fairmont’s Jackson Crouso and Nitro’s Ty Stephens. Dobbs was named Tournament MVP, leading the field in points per game (21.3) and assists per game (6) and blocks per game (4).
