Gallery by Tina Laney
Tuesday night inside the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center the story was the youth versus experience.
Experience made all of the difference.
Senior Brendan Hoffman exploded for 33 points and fellow senior Ben Nichol added 13 to push Class AAAA No. 3 George Washington past regional rival Woodrow Wilson 70-57.
“I told (Woodrow Wilson head coach) Ron (Kidd) after the game that we had two seniors tonight and they played like seniors,” George Washington head coach Rick Greene said. “They covered for our inexperience in some things and that was difference tonight. (Woodrow) doesn’t have that quite yet.”
Leading by five points after the first quarter, the Patriots made it a 12-point lead in the first 90 seconds of the second period sparked by six points from Hoffman.
The home team sliced the lead back to seven points, but when GW needed a bucket, Hoffman came calling all night for the Patriots.
“He doesn’t even have a college call. He is a Promise Scholarship guy and his test scores are off the charts,” Greene said of Hoffman. “He is a great kid that is extremely coachable and can’t get a college to call. He is really being overlooked.”
A deep strike by Nicol and five straight from Hoffman including a straight-away 3-pointer gave GW its biggest lead of the first half at 15 points.
Hoffman’s 3-pointer came on a kick-out from Nicol who hampered Woodrow with his dribble penetration when he wasn’t doing it with his scoring.
“He really runs the offense for us. Unselfish is a perfect word for him,” Greene said. “He just wants to win. You can’t tell if he scored one point or 33. Win or lose the locker will be fine because he owns that locker room. He is very unusual player.”
Woodrow cut the lead back to nine points at the break, but a score by Nichol and a pair of assists to Hoffman and freshman big man Noah Lewis made it a 43-29 lead.
Although the Flying Eagles looked in trouble, they were far from it.
“I like what I see in this team. They showed a lot of heart,” Kidd said. “We could have been blown out by 30, but the kids showed fight. We know that we can play better than we did at times.”
For the next three minutes, Beckley proved it could play with the one of the top teams in the state.
An old-school 3-point play from freshman Zyon Hawthorne was followed by a deep score from fellow freshman Coby Dillon.
Hoffman then answered a bucket from Elijah Redfern before Brayden Hawthorne drove the baseline and slammed one home over a GW defender.
With the home crowd still in a frenzy, on the next possession Redfern kicked the ball out to Dillon for another long-range 3-ball moving Beckley within three points.
Unfortunately for the Flying Eagles, youth reared its head at a bad time and GW’s experienced paid big dividends.
“That is where maybe the senior versus youth thing showed up (the most). Us not doing the right thing at that time to really cut more into that lead,” Kidd said. “I thought we kind of rushed our shots and didn’t take a good shot like we should have. Then they went on their end and did get a good shot.”
Out of the GW timeout, the Patriots went to Hoffman who drove hard to the basket for a foul on one trip and scored on the next drive.
“We call him Mach-5 and the he goes out there and goes Mach-6,” Greene said about Huffman’s ability to explode to the basket.
When the third quarter horn sounded, the Patriots led by eight points.
While Kidd gave credit to Hoffman for his ability, he also felt like his team could have been better defensively on the GW standout.
“Defense is 85 percent (heart). You just have to get in front of people like he did on us a couple of times. Sometimes you might have to bump and grind and make the referee call it,” Kidd said. “I don’t think we did that on the defensive end, but they did it on us. We should have done that on our end as well.”
Back-to-back scores from Lewis pushed the lead to 12 points and the Patriots led by double figures the rest of the way.
“I think there size got us at points. When we would get back in the game, they would get a stickback or a layup. They just used their muscle against us,” Kidd said.
Standing 6-foot-6, Lewis added 14 points Tuesday night and hurt Beckley several times in the paint.
“He is a freshman and he will go two forward and one back,” Greene said. “Overall, for a freshman, we are not content, but were very pleased.”
Redfern led Beckley with 19 points, six assists and three steals. Dillon had 11 points, while Jaylon Walton grabbed eight rebounds.
Woodrow Wilson is back in action Dec. 28 against Oak Hill in the Little General Battle for the Armory.
GW: 14 20 18 18 – 70
WW: 9 16 19 9 – 53
George Washington
Noah Lewis 14, Dawson Lunsford 4, Brendan Hoffman 33, Ben Nicol 13, Chuck Kelley 3, Brandon Dennison 3. Totals: 31 5-10 70.
Woodrow Wilson
Coby Dillon 11, Elijah Redfern 19, Zyon Hawthorne 6, Preston Clary 4, Brayden Hawthorn 6, Drew Fitzwater 3, Jaylon Walton 4. Totals: 20 8-15 53.
3-pointers – GW:: 3 (Hoffman 2, Nicol); WW: 5 (Dillon 3, Redfern, Clary)
