Gallery by Heather Belcher
The motto for Beckley Basketball has always been “Next Man Up.”
With senior starters Maddex McMillen and Keynan Cook on the bench in street clothes due to injuries, Beckley coach Ron Kidd was forced to rely on a younger group of players.
It almost paid off as a late rally fell short Tuesday evening with the host Flying Eagles falling 55-50 to Huntington in the New River Invitational at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center.
Trailing by as many as 20 points in the third quarter, Beckley’s young crop of players, led by 18 points from sophomore Elijah Redfern, mounted a rally that slashed the deficit to four with 1:51 left in the game, but three consecutive offensive rebounds for the Highlanders prevented the hosts from trimming the deficit any further.
“In shootaround Coach Steve Kidd always works on that,” Kidd said of the offensive rebounds. “That’s something they should know and that shouldn’t happen to us. That’s inexperience with a ninth grader and a 10th grader down on the block.”
The comeback attempt was a welcome sight after how things started for the Flying Eagles.
The Highlanders scorched the nets to open the game, turning defense into offense. Six forced turnover in the quarter helped the visitors to an early 14-3 advantage, prompting a timeout from Kidd. The pep talk worked as the the hosts, trailing 16-3, answered with a 7-0 run, highlighted by a corner 3-pointer form Zan Hill on an inbound play.
Unfortunately for the hosts each time they mounted a mini run, Huntington answered.
A 3-pointer form Gunnell Hickman and a pair of Jaylen Motley free throws pushed the lead back to 11, but Beckley again steadied the storm. Still the slugfest continued.
The Highlanders held a 15-point advantage going into the break, looking primed to break the game open.
“I thought we played pretty good defense at the beginning,” Huntington coach Ty Holmes said. “When you score off defense it makes the game a lot easier. I think that gave us a heads up. We tried to focus on their guard (Elijah Redfern) because he’s pretty good. We tried to take away his drives and pull ups but I thought we played solid defense in the beginning and got some scores off of defense.”
The Highlanders scored the first five points of the second half, pushing their lead to 20 with it hovering at 19 throughout the frame but a 3-pointer from Sam Peck later in the quarter helped turn the tide.
The long ball cut the deficit back to 16 and a layup from Redfern made it a 47-33 game heading into the fourth.
Six straight to open the frame on buckets from Redfern, Jaylon Walton and Nazir King cut the deficit to single digits but staying true to their first-half trend, the Highlanders answered back with four straight.
Trailing by 12, Redfern, Walton and Elijah Waller combined for eight straight to cut the deficit to four.
“I thought our pace picked up a little bit and we started attacking instead of going side to side,” Kidd said. “I think we started going north-south right at them and that kind of changed things. I thought we went at them and it changed the game.”
Unfortunately for the hosts that’s as close as they could get with Redfern fouling out and the younger players yielding three offensive rebounds in the final minute.
“I’m just proud of the way our kids gutted it out,” Kidd said. “We was down 19 and it could’ve been 30 or 40. I think our kids showed some fight. We just made some mental mistakes that you can’t make in games at the end of games like that. They showed fight though.”
Elijah Redfern led the Flying Eagles with 19 points while Walton added eight. Jaylon Motley had 18 for Huntington with Mikey Johnson adding 16.
Beckley drops to 2-3 on the season and will return to action Saturday when it plays Logan in the nightcap of the New River Invitational.
