Gallery by Tina Laney
Sports can be a rocky road at times.
The areas a team or player struggles with the most will seemingly revisit them continuously until they finally get it right.
Saturday night, a young Beckley boys basketball squad took a huge step forward when it hosted Class AAAA No. 8 (tie) Huntington inside the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center.
Suffering through some well documented struggles at crunch-time in recent years, the Flying Eagles made the plays necessary to beat the Highlanders 56-54.
“I thought our kids showed a lot of poise. If you notice, we didn’t turn the ball over in that fourth quarter. I thought poise was the difference. We kept our head,” Beckley head coach Ron Kidd said. “Elijah (Redfern) was there and he is a senior. He did what he was supposed to do at that time. His senior leadership showed and I thought (Nazir King’s) senior leadership showed.”
The home team led 42-39 heading into the final quarter which quickly went to seven thanks to Jaylon Walton.
Walton muscled his way in for a bucket before scoring on a layup in transition.
The junior big man scored 11 points in the game and was a huge factor for Beckley inside against the athletic Highlanders.
“I thought it started in the Shady (Spring) game with Jaylon. He was taking it to them and it carried over to this game,” Kidd said about Walton’s aggressive play. “Huntington is very athletic. If he can do that against them, he can do that against anybody. He can be a man against any team that we play.”
A reverse layup from Avonte Crawford and a driving score from Mikey Johnson was answered by another strong effort from Walton in the lane.
Johnson trimmed the five-point deficit to 52-50 with a conventional 3-point play before Walton made one of two free-throws for a three-point lead.
A jumper in the lane from Johnson with two minutes to play cut the advantage to 53-52 which returned to a two-point lead after King made one of his two free throw attempts.
The Flying Eagles then appeared to get the defensive stop they needed, but a stickback from Taveon Wilson tied the game with 1:12 to play in the contest.
Offensive rebounds from the athletic Highlanders had been a thorn in Beckley’s side all night.
“They are so athletic, so I thought our kids tried to battle,” Kidd said. “We told them at the shoot-around that we won’t out jump them. Make sure we put a body on them and check them away from the goal before they get there. When they got there, they were just jumping over us. I thought our kids were battling, but we just weren’t checking them before the goal.”
Beckley chose to run the clock inside 10 seconds before calling timeout to set up one last look at the rim in regulation.
In a scenario where the young Flying Eagles had previously struggled, things did not go as planned. However, the ability of sophomore Coby Dillon to improvise helped Beckley erase the nightmares of the past.
“(Coby) was smart enough to go to the basket. We kind of wanted Redfern with the ball in his hands, but they did a great job denying him the ball,” Kidd said. “I am glad Coby got it in his hands and he attacked the glass and picked up that foul.”
Two makes from Dillon with 4.6 seconds on the clock gave Beckley a 56-54 lead, but Huntington had one last chance for a tie or a winning 3-pointer.
Moving the ball quickly across half-court, the visitors took a timeout with just under two seconds to play, but could not convert the look on the ensuing in-bounds play.
“It is definitely a tough loss and a game that got away from us for sure,” Huntington head coach Lambros Svingos said. “I feel like my guys played their hearts out tonight and we just didn’t have some calls go our way. At the end of the day, they were the better team tonight.”
Svingos also lamented his team’s slow start as a factor in the game. Beckley led as many as six in the first quarter before Huntington took a 29-28 lead at the break.
“It was a two-hour ride and we came out flat. We started to pull it together with some patience on offense and got aggressive,” Svingos said. “I preach it to them that we have to play with patience and be aggressive at the same time. Most of the time we are seeing those zones. We have to attack it and find the open shot. Once we came alive, we started to play our game.”
Kidd on the other hand talked about how the first quarter was just what his team needed to start the game.
“The first quarter was a good start. It gave our kids confidence that they could play with them,” Kidd said. “They were very athletic and one of the top teams in the state. We look for them to be in the state tournament.”
Beckley’s answer in the third quarter to regain the lead centered largely around the play of Redfern who sliced up the Highlander defense for scores at the rim.
Redfern ended with 16 points and narrowly missed a triple-double.
“Defensively, our help-side really wasn’t quite there tonight as much as we would have liked it to be,” Svingos said. “They were a good ball team tonight and they played a good game. (Zyon Hawthorne) hit some big shots for them. (Redfern), their guy and the motor for their team, he did a really good job.”
Playing in his second game back after an injury sidelined him, Redfern looked like one of the top guards in the state.
“I give all the (assistant) coaches credit for just telling him that he didn’t have to do it all himself,” Kidd explained. “Against Shady it was (his first game back) and I thought he wanted to show people that he was back. It is hard sitting out (over) a month and come back in an environment like that. I thought tonight he played extremely well.”
Coming off a less than stellar performance in the loss to Shady Spring, Kidd applauded his team for how they responded Saturday.
“We always say a setback is a setup for a great comeback. I thought our kids showed a lot of character with the comeback,” Kidd said. “We feel like we can get even better. We had some breakdowns in the second and third quarters that we can clean up. We still have a lot of work, but this was a big game for us.”
Hawthorne and Dillon scored 10 points each, while King added nine points. Johnson and Crawford had 14 each for the Highlanders.
H: 14 14 11 15 – 54
B: 17 10 15 14 – 56
Huntington
Mikey Johnson 14, Avante Crawford 10, Tavion Chandler 14, Jayden Clark 7, Taveon Wilson 9. Totals: 23 4-5 54.
Beckley
Coby Dillon 10, Elijah Redfern 16, Zyon Hawthorne 10, Nazir King 9, Jaylon Walton 11. Totals: 22 7-12 56.
