In a tight game, every possession matters.
Unfortunately for Wyoming East that sentiment rang true in the fourth quarter and worked against it.
Leading by six points heading into the fourth quarter, the Warriors hoisted difficult, contested shots on their first three possessions, missing all of them en route to a 66-63 loss to Elkins Wednesday afternoon in the Pepsi consolation game of the Little General Battle for the Armory.
The shot selection opened the door for Elkins to rally and build a four-point lead throughout the fourth quarter.
“They ran a little flex action and we had no communication, no talking no switching,” Wyoming East coach Derek Brooks said. “It’s an easy switch and they don’t get wide open layups. Then they run the UCLA double screen to get the shooter through and you’ve just got to bust your tail and get up through there and the bigs have to help and get back. That’s a play we run. They should know how to defend it but I think the change was right there in the fourth. We had a six-point lead and come out and take three straight contested shots and they got buckets.”
Early the game looked like it would be over well before the fourth.
Led by 10 first-quarter points from Cory Harper, the Tigers scorched the nets, cashing in on nine of their 12 field goal attempts for a 22-12 lead after the break.
The second quarter was a different story.
While most of the Warriors’ offense came from Tanner Whitten in the first, the buzzer to start the second quarter woke his teammates. Nine points from Garrett Mitchell in the second quarter helped the Warriors tie the game at 27 and a bucket from Jacob Howard helped them take the lead.
A 3-pointer and a layup from Whitten helped East push their lead to five but a pair of free throws courtesy of Harper slashed the deficit to three before the break.
“I think that timeout where I had to light a fire under them helped,” Brooks said. “The last few games we haven’t played defense. We’ve given up too easy ball penetration and they’re getting wide-open looks going all the way to the lane on ball penetration and there’s no help side. We just told them they’ve got to buck up and play defense and I think they did there for the rest of the game really. Like I said, it got away from us in the fourth with those bad shots and helped them push it down the floor. They ran their stuff and got open looks. Hats off to the Harper kid because he hit some tough shots.”
After a sluggish third quarter Harper scored six in the third but sprouted to life in the fourth for his final 12 of the game.
A 3-pointer from the sharpshooter slashed the deficit to a point early in the fourth and he nailed another to stake the Tigers to a 53-51 lead.
A pair of free throws from East’s Chandler Johnson in the waning minutes of the game tied it at 61 but Harper’s 24-foot 3-pointer from the top of the key with 54 seconds left served as the deciding basket.
“Cory hasn’t met a shot he didn’t like,” Elkins coach Amrit Rayfield laughed. “It doesn’t matter about the background or surroundings. I think he made just one (3-pointer) yesterday. It was kind of a sigh of relief and he just came back today and had more confidence. We kept running some stuff for him and it’s nice when you have a player you can run stuff for and get big shots from him. All credit to him for making those.”
Whitten led all scorers with 31 points on 11-of-17 shooting from the field. Harper’s 30 points paced the Tigers.
East drops to 1-3 and will return to action Tuesday, Jan. 4 when it travel to the Brushfork Armory to play Bluefield. Elkins moves to 5-1 and will host Lincoln on Jan. 5.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
E: 22 9 14 21 – 66
WE: 12 22 17 12 – 63
Elkins 66
Max Jackson 4, Cory Harper 30, Tanner Miller 10, Jaydon Shreve 5, Malachi Watson 13, Addison McCauley 4
Wyoming East 63
Cole Lambert 7, Chandler Johnson 8, Tanner Whitten 31, Garrett Mitchell 13, Jacob Howard 2, Tanner Cook 2
3-point goals – WE: 3 (Lambert, Whitten, Mitchell); E: 7 (Harper 5, Shreve 1, Watson 1). Fouled Out – None.
