Gallery by Heather Belcher
Beckley – The growing pains and flashes of brilliance were on full display when the Beckley girls basketball team took the court against two-time defining state champion Huntington on Thursday.
Unfortunately for the Flying Eagles the growing pains of a squad starting four underclassmen won out.
Trailing by as many as 14 points halfway through the second quarter, Beckley flipped the script and led by seven in the fourth quarter before falling 52-48 to the Highlanders in the New River CTC Invitational at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center.
Keyed by a nine-point third quarter from Josie Cross, the host Flying Eagles outscored Huntington 14-4 out of the intermission, taking the lead on a buzzer beater from Cross after three quarters.
The talented sophomore then proceeded to take just one shot in the fourth as Beckley struggled against Huntington’s defensive adjustments.
“We went to the 1-3-1 to keep them from holding the ball and they still held it and were taking too much time,” Huntington head coach Lonnie Lucas said. “We went to denying the ball and we stole it and we nearly gave it away. But they did what we wanted to do.”
Behind and 11-point showing in the first half from Amara Jackson, the Highlanders held the Flying Eagles in check, taking a 28-20 advantage into the break. A Jada Turner layup and a free throw each from Bentleigh Christus and Jackson pushed the Highlander advantage to 12 early in the third.
Those were the final points of the frame for Huntington.
A 14-0 run that heavily featured Cross gave the Flying Eagles their first lead of the contest.
“They just started executing and doing everything we wanted to do and do in practice,” Beckley head coach Brian Nabors said. “We wanted to go through our post and we had to switch the lineup a little bit. Josie’s playing out of position because we don’t really think she’s a post player – she’s basketball player but for us to be successful we have to go through her and we went through her and we kept running and were making good decisions attacking that zone and got us back in the game. We took the lead and went up seven and you saw what happened after that.”
After a pair of ties early in the fourth a 7-0 Beckley run that featured a layup from Abby Dillon, a 3 from Lataja Creasey and Cross’ only shot attempt of the fourth put the hosts in position to squeak out the win.
And then the youth showed.
Attempting to slow the game down the Highlanders forced turnovers up top, eventually taking the lead when Ella Giles nailed a 3 to put Huntington up 50-48. A rushed 3-point attempt on the other end failed to drop but miscues plagued the Flying Eagles as they were forced to foul in a one-and-one situation, grabbed the miss on the front end but failed to stay in bounds. Another rushed attempt in bid to tie came up empty again and Giles salted the game with a pair of free throws.
After turning the ball over seven times in the first half the Flying Eagles gave it away 13 times in the second half with Huntington swiping nine passes across the final two quarters.
“It’s just not taking care of the ball and understanding that you play to win,” Nabors said. “When you’re up like that you don’t play passive and we started playing passive. What got us back in the game was we were attacking and we went totally away from that. I called a timeout and we turned the ball over several times down the stretch. They utilized their size on us and we didn’t have enough help on the backside and they were able to get some easy baskets. They stayed the course and we didn’t and they won.”
The Flying Eagles will look to get back on track Saturday when they play Class AAAA No. 1 Wheeling Park in the New River CTC Invitational. Huntington will face Park on Friday at 5 p.m.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
