Charleston – In a matter of 11 seconds Shady Spring went from an emotional high to bottoming out.
The Tigers have Zycheus Dobbs to thank for that.
After Shady star Braden Chapman hit the go-ahead layup with 10.8 seconds left, Fairmont Senior countered, racing up the court to find Dobbs who hit a floater before the clock expired to deliver the Polar Bears a 60-59 win in the Class AAA championship game Saturday night at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
And this is how it ends for Shady Spring. Zycheus Dobbs at the buzzer pic.twitter.com/b2BDatR1Z4
— Tyler Jackson (@TJack94) March 19, 2022
With the win the Polar Bears cap a 24-3 season, dethroning the reigning Class AAA champs.
“We were fortunate, honored and made one more play than them,” Fairmont head coach David Retton said.
“(Braden Chapman) was face guarding me,” Dobbs said. “They got open and DeSean (Goode) he just pushed it and he seen me in the middle and made a good pass and the rest was – I just made the shot.”
Trailing 58-51 with 2:42 left in the game, the Tigers kicked it into high gear with Chapman taking over. A layup from the junior all-stater chipped the deficit to five and another by Ammar Maxwell kept the comeback effort alive. A pair of layups from Chapman gave the Tigers a brief lead before Dobbs’ shot ripped their hearts out.
It was a perfect summary of how the game went with Shady making several spirted runs only for Fairmont to hold the Tigers at bay.
That largely stemmed from the reigning champs getting out to a slow start.
After Shady tied the game 6-6, the Polar Bears ripped off a 7-0 run with a Joe Uram 3 and a pair of Eric Smith layups.
On the back of Chapman, who scored the final nine points of the quarter for Shady, the Tigers kept pace but still trialed 22-15 after a quarter.
A 10-2 run over the opening two minutes of the second frame put Shady up 25-24 but the size of the Polar Bears and the ability of Dobbs to get downhill allowed the Polar Bears to succeed in the half court.
“They just went downhill on us,” Olson said. “Dobbs is a big kid. He’s big and strong and he’s able to avoid a lot of our charges. I thought Braden did a hell of a job on him in the second half. I thought that was the difference. I thought 22 points in the first quarter made a difference and that’s too many. And we never stopped but they kind of got what they hated early and some of those big 3s in the corner cross-court kicks hurts us as well.”
The Polar Bears’ offensive success was reflected in their field goal percentage as they shot 62 percent from the floor in the first half and 54 percent for the game. Shady fared well itself, shooting 50 percent from the field but a lull in which the Tigers went without a field goal over the final 5:43 of the second quarter hurt.
A 9-2 Polar Bear run over that span staked them to a 35-29 advantage at the break, one that grew to as many  eight points in the fourth quarter, but a new hero emerged in Ammar Maxwell.
The sophomore scored 12 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter, canning a pair of 3s that allowed for Chapman’s late run.
That ultimately led to the final sequence where Dobbs and Chapman traded buckets to decide the game.
Neither coach elected to take a timeout after Chapman’s layup. Olson admitted his regret it not doing so.
“It’s my fault because I should have called a timeout,” Olson said. “Absolutely. I don’t know if the officials, they barely recognized me all game I don’t know if they would’ve recognized me at the end … But I take the blame for losing the game because I should’ve took a timeout when we scored a bucket and set our defense and that’s on me. Guys battled and they fought and I didn’t call the timeout. We decided to go early and Braden took it. He took what he wanted. He won the game and I should’ve took a timeout and set the defense and I didn’t.”
“The players make the plays,” Retton said. “Everybody has a different philosophy but I’m not calling a timeout. Because that allows them to set up their defense and we get in the timeout, regardless of how much you try to give them confidence and composure, as a coach it works against us. It would’ve worked for the defense and fortunately (Dobbs) makes a big shot.”
Outside of Chapman and Maxwell the Tigers struggled to find much offense with the rest of the team going 5 of 20 from the floor. A large part of that had to do with the inside presence of Fairmont bigs Goode and Smith as well as Dobbs. The Polar Bears’ length and size allowed them to establish a new single-game state tournament record of 12 blocks.
“Wow, that’s awesome,” Retton said. “We got good size inside and this team has played different than other teams that we’ve had. And it’s just okay. Mark Delligatti, wrestling coach at Fairmont Senior, told me many years ago ‘You know David, you’ve got to adjust every year in basketball because you’ve got different personnel.’ Coach Huggins, Coach Krzyzewski, they can recruit to their system. We’d like to stay with that system every year but we have to change it and tweak it every year. We’ve done that. We wanted to get the ball inside and were a better team when we got the ball inside and played to that strength.”
Still trying to process the loss, Olson retained confidence in his team that returns every player next season.
“We don’t take it for granted and we played on the last Saturday but there is no ‘Hey guys, good job! Hey guys we lost, it sucks, see you in the summer'” Olson said. “We’ve got to get better, we’ve got to get bigger we’ve got to get stronger. There is no back-to-back. It’s gone. We can’t take back tonight. Let’s get two out of three. We’ve got our whole team back. We’re going to be bigger and I guaran-damn-tee it we’re going to be back here on Saturday next year.”
Braden Chapman led all scorers with 26 points while Maxwell added 16.
Goode led Fairmont with 16 points and 10 rebounds while Dobbs finished with 15 points.
Shady finishes the season 25-2.
Class AAA All-Tournament
Reece Carden, Scott
Braden Chapman, Shady Spring
Zycheus Dobbs, Fairmont Senior
Ryan Reasbeck, Wheeling Central
Cole Chapman, Shady
Ryan Maier, Grafton
Eric Smith, Fairmont
Dane Hatfield, Hoover
DeSean Goode, Fairmont #wvprepbb pic.twitter.com/iJ2b5D5zc9— Tyler Jackson (@TJack94) March 19, 2022
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
