It was always going to be hard to fathom how Eli Allen would improve upon an already stellar career.
He had already led a dominant state championship run as a junior and earned Class A first-team all-state captain honors.
But somehow he found a way, which shouldn’t be a surprise as he had done so every offseason of his career.
He grew six inches between his freshman and sophomore seasons, helped the team to No. 2 ranking as a sophomore and led the Mavericks to a title as a junior.
The improvements ahead of his senior year focused more on refinements as well as intangibles.
“I talked to him before the season started,” James Monroe head coach Matt Sauvage said. “When you have somebody that can backup what they’re saying night in and night out, players are going to look to you. I said ‘Eli, this is your shot and I’m not talking about Player of the Year or anything else. I’m talking about this is your shot to lead this team to wherever it is.’ I think from the first practice he carried that out. He’d get on other players when he needed to but then he also knew how to pick them back up after he got on to them. So that was the first thing we had to really put in place.”
It all paid off for Allen who repeated as the first team captain and earned Player of the Year honors form Gatorade, Maxpreps and the West Virginia Sports Writers Association. He’s also added Lootpress Offensive Player of the Year honors for the second consecutive season.
Allen beat out Ammar Maxwell (Shady Spring), Kam’Ron Gore (Bluefield) and Braden Chapman (Shady Spring) to repeat as the winner. He did so by averaging 21.4 points, 7.4 rebounds and 8.8 assists per game. But as naturally gifted as he is, he didn’t achieve the level of stardom he has on his genes alone. Sauvage, who has coached volleyball at Greenbrier East for nearly two decades has had Player of the Year candidates and winners such as Abby Brown and Chylyn Pate. There’s always a common thread, one that Allen shares.
“I’ve got six or seven players that I’ve had that have that drive and work ethic a lot of people don’t see,” Sauvage said. “Abby Brown played volleyball for me, Shad (Sauvage), Chylyn and Eli were all like that. People don’t really understand what a gym rat is until you see them. I’ve been privileged to coach about six or seven players who are truly gym rats that you have to run out of the gym every day. For instance Eli this year, he’d stay an hour or two after practice and eventually I’d have to be like, ‘Dude, I’ve got to go home and eat something,’ because he just did not want to settle for second best. Chylyn was the same way and had that same drive. It’s pretty cool to be able to coach players like that that have that drive. As a coach you can encourage that and push it but the player has to have that drive. Eli had that ingrained in him. He decided he wanted to be the best in the state in basketball but his goal was never to be the player of the year, he wanted to get this team to another state championship. Whatever accolades came along with it were great but I never heard him talk about an accolade.”
It would’ve been easy to settle after rte success the Mavericks enjoyed last season, finishing 28-0 and winning the Class A title. But instead he had conversations with those close to him and took their advice to heart. It led to James Monroe repeating as Class A champions, doing so in more dominant fashion than it did last season. The Mavs won their state tournament games by an average of 34 points per game this year while Allen tied the Class A tournament record for most field goals made while shooting 66 percent from the field.
“Going into the offseason we sat down with his dad and stepdad and talked about the things he needed to improve,” Sauavge said. “We talked about his outside shooting and he’s always shot decent from outside but he never really had to shoot from outside because he’s always had Shad as his Batman and Robin type deal. In the offseason he knew he was going to have to improve his confidence on that outside shot because teams were going to play him differently this year. I think every game he had a different kind of defense waiting for him. He put up thousands and thousands of shots and they were different shots – off the dribble, catch and shoot, floaters, etc. He wanted to perfect his shot to the best of his ability.
“The second thing we wanted to improve was his lateral quickness. Eli wants to play at the highest level and he wanted to improve his quickness. Josh was always our on-ball defender and drew the top assignment on defense but we put Eli on the team’s second best player and he basically shut them down so the other team was dependent upon the No. 1 but Josh took that away. Nobody we played this year could get around Eli because his defense was so tough. He’s always working on different stuff to get better.”
Naturally the question arises – is Allen the best player in the history of Monroe County? Sauvage, who played on some of the best Peterstown teams, thinks he has a compelling case.
“I got asked that question the other day and I never thought about it,” Sauvage laughed. “When it comes to where he’s taken his teams and the accolades so to speak, you would have to say yes. But that’s not to say Steve Newberry and Chad Johnson or Travis Jackson or Kelly Mann or Mark Grigsby aren’t great players. But you have to look at what Eli’s accomplished. It would be hard to top what he’s accomplished. Kelly was one of the best scorers I’ve ever been around but it will be a fun roundtable discussion if we ever get them all in the same room but overall it would be a fun argument.”
Allen will receive a $500 scholarship from the Lootpress Foundation and be honored at the Lootpress Spring Player of the Year Banquet on Saturday, May 27 at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com