Gallery by Greg Barnett
Brushfork – Most nights teams have to pick their poison when facing Bluefield.
First-team all-staters Kam’Ron Gore and R.J. Hairston never gave Shady Spring the choice Friday night, each taking turns hammering the Tigers.
The duo combined for 41 points in the Brushwork Armory, handing Class AAA No. 2 Shady a 75-59 loss.
Each took turns imposing their wills.
Hairston scored 15 of his 19 points in the first half while Gore scored 14 of his 22 in the second half. Along with Jase Smith and Glen Keene (15 points each), the Class AA No. 3 Beavers had their most effective offensive outing of the season, considering the opponent, converting on 32 of 48 field goal attempts (67 percent).
Aiding the Beavers’ cause was a 19-turnover performance from the Tigers with 13 coming in the first half.
“Well, you know, we worked a lot on pressure all week long,” Bluefield head coach Buster Large said. “And I think the pressure bothered them but you know we rebounded well, played good defense, took good percentage shots and all that worked out tonight.”
For Shady Spring head coach Ronnie Olson the night was full of frustration. Each time he tried to stop the bleeding it somehow got worse.
After Bluefield (8-2) rode a Keene 3 and a Gore layup to an early 5-0 lead, Olson called his first timeout just two minutes into the game to regroup.
It took 12 seconds for Hairston and Gore to add a pair of layups out of the short break, each coming off of Shady (8-2) turnovers.
A 3 from Gavin Davis broke the ice for the Tigers who eventually trimmed the deficit to two points at 11-9 with 3:28 to play in the quarter but an 8-2 run to end the frame increased the advantage back to eight points at the end of the stanza.
A bucket by Gore a minute into the second quarter pushed the lead to double digits and it never fell below that threshold the rest of there way. Hairston in particular proved troublesome on both ends for Shady. Ten of his points came in the second quarter where he nailed all five of his shot attempts.
On defense he was primarily responsible for limiting Shady Spring star Ammar Maxwell to six points and seven turnovers in the opening half.
“I thought we were only in our space,” Olson said. “We weren’t owning their space and you know (Hairston’s) length bothered us a little bit there in the first half. I think Ammar tried to force a couple things early and our floor wasn’t balanced. We play with balance with the floor and spacing and that’s how we play basketball and I thought guys were almost standing on top of each other, which would bring the help defense to Ammar. I thought he was trying to win the game because we were struggling and that’s what good players do, they try to take it upon themselves to win it – to bring a team back because he felt that urgency like we were getting ready to get blown out.
“But it just compounded and we’ve got to be able to trust in what we do because what we do works and it’s very hard to guard and once we did it in the second half, we just kind of moved him around a little bit and moved other guys out. We just kind of trusted in our spacing. And that’s why we will be more successful offensively.”
Maxwell’s struggles didn’t last long but by the time Shady found balance it was too late.
The Beavers held Shady to 2 of 9 shooting in the second quarter to take a 35-19 lead into the break.
Maxwell came out of the intermission possessed, scoring 14 of his game-high 30 points in the third quarter, leading a 23-point quarter for the Tigers.
Unfortunately for the visitors the offense mattered little without the defense to match it. The Beavers put up 27 points out of the break, expanding their advantage to 20 points heading into the fourth. Smith and Gore led that assault, scoring nine and eight points, respectively, in the third.
In a game where the Beavers connected on 67 percent of their field goal attempts, they burned hotter as the game wore on, hitting at a 62 percent clip in each of the first two quarters. They followed with a 71 percent (10 of 14) success rate in the third and finished with a 75 percent (6 of 8) showing in the fourth. Those attempts mostly came from inside the arc where they were 26 of 37, but added six successful 3-pointers.
“They got some open shots, but we didn’t guard very well tonight,” Olson said. “I mean we just couldn’t keep our guy in front of us. I don’t think we were really locked in on what they were doing. I know we went over some of the sets they ran and we still didn’t guard them. I thought they pushed us off our spot on the offensive and defensive end. And everybody agrees in our locker room. They beat us, man. They out-willed us and they wanted us and we just took a good old-fashioned butt-kicking if I’m being nice about it. We couldn’t guard them on the drive, we couldn’t guard them on the shot. We thought we rebounded okay.”
The bright spot of the night came near the end for Shady when Maxwell scored his 1,000th career point. with just over a minute to go.
“That was hard because I didn’t know if he was gonna get to it,” Olson said. “I knew he needed 29 but congratulations to him. It sucks and he was as happy and sad as you can be because of the situation but we’re gonna give him something when we play at home. We’ve had four 1,000-point scorers and those aren’t that easy. You saw what he did in the second half offensively. The kid’s unstoppable and I’m happy for him. I know that means a lot to him. And it should mean something to you. He deserves that and he’s one of the best players in the state.”
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
SS: 11 8 23 17 – 59
B: 19 16 27 13 – 75
Shady Spring
Ammar Maxwell 30, Brody Radford 4, Gavin Davis 8, Khi Olson 5, Jalon Bailey 9, Braedy Johnston 3
Bluefield
Glen Keene 15, Kam’Ron Gore 22, Jase Smith 15, RJ Hairston 19, EJ Washignton 2, Brett Samosky 2
