Gallery by Heather Belcher
James Monroe head coach Matt Sauvage admitted he was curious how his team would respond Saturday night.
Friday night the Class A No. 1 ranked Mavericks had a tough, physical battle with AAA No. 1 Shady Spring inside the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center.
Less than 24 hours later, the top-ranked Mavs were back at the famed Armory for a showdown with Class A No. 3 Webster County on the final day of the New River CTC Tournament.
Although James Monroe showed signs from the physical battle with Shady, the Mavericks were too much for the Highlanders in a 71-59 win.
“Our guys before the game said they were ready to go, but about three minutes in, it didn’t quite look like it. You could see their legs were a little tired and stuff,” Sauvage said. “I told them that was part of basketball, so let’s push through and get it. I was proud of how they pushed through. Even though it was ugly at times, they pushed through and took care of it.”
Leading 10-8 with three minutes to play, the Mavs scored nine straight points and began to pull away. Five points from Collin Fox was followed by steals and layups from Eli Allen and Josh Burks.
The lead was 10 after one quarter and James Monroe pushed the advantage to 15 points by halftime.
“Webster started out man, for a short span there it took our boys a little time to see what kind of zone they were running (in the second quarter),” Sauvage said. “They really pushed the 2-3 (zone) out a lot and we were able to get a lot of open looks there.”
An 8-3 run to start the second half made it a 20-point game and the game appeared to be slipping away from Webster County.
“Early in the game we were ball watching and weren’t moving without the ball. We went in at half and made some adjustments to our high sets,” Webster County head coach Mike Gray said. “We moved better in the second half and hit some shots.”
A 10-0 burst from the Highlanders changed the complexion of the game over the next three minutes.
“We got in a little bit of foul trouble (in the first half) and we weren’t moving much. We changed our offense up and got some better movement out of it,” Gray said. “We were forcing shots in that second quarter, but when we settled down with our offense then we were hitting shots.”
A 3-pointer from Riley Clevenger cut the lead inside single digits with 1:06 to play in the third quarter before Burks scored to give the Mavs an 11-point lead with eight minutes to play in the contest.
“They turn you over a lot, but we are growing too,” Gray said. “We are playing a lot of young players and turnovers got us tonight. We hadn’t been turning the ball over like this. Give credit to James Monroe, they are in your face. If you show the ball, they are going to steal it.”
A steal from Allen, which he turned into a conventional 3-point play, opened the final period.
It was the defensive spark that ignited a 10-2 run early in the final stanza and while the Highlanders could not get the game back in single digits, to their credit, they never went away either.
“We knew Webster was going to be a tough team coming in. We watched two or three game films on them and could see they were a good team,” Sauvage said. “Clevenger has really stepped up and I have been impressed with him. (Rayden) Triplett, the same thing. Mike always has those guys ready to go and Mike does a great job. We knew it would be a battle.”
Allen led the Mavs with 25 points, while Fox added 18. Juan Hopkins scored 12 on 6-of-6 shooting and Burks added nine. Triplett scored 21 for the Highlanders and Clevenger had 18.
James Monroe (8-2) hosts No. 9 Greenbrier West Tuesday, while Webster County (7-2) travels to Braxton County Monday.