James Monroe’s early schedule has provided a challenge nearly every night with Wyoming East and Princeton among the early tests for the two-time defending state champs.
Thursday night the Mavericks stepped down into their own class, adding another key win against a fellow state tournament hopeful.
The Mavericks out-rebounded Webster County 35-17 and held it to 33 percent shooting from the field in the second half to secure a 59-51 victory in the New River CTC Invitational at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center.
After a tightly contested first-half which saw James Monroe take a 32-29 lead into the break, the Mavericks found the solutions on defense – run the Highlanders off the 3-point line.
It worked with Webster converting on just 2 of 10 attempts from downtown in the second half after hitting 7 of 15 in the opening half.
“It felt like they hit 100 percent In the first half is what it felt like,” James Monroe head coach Matt Sauvage laughed. “You know, they’re a great shooting team, probably one of the better shooting teams we’ll play this year. And so the first half we weren’t recognizing. When we would come over on the double at the bottom, we weren’t recognizing the shift to the corner. And so by the time we got out to it, it was just too late to even close out on it. So in the second half and at halftime we talked about recognizing that and the drop down guys got to close out because if not they’re gonna continue to light us up and like I said, they’re probably one of the best shooting teams will play this year. They’ve got three guys that can light it up.”
The 3 was a life raft for the Highlanders who fell in a hole early.
After a 14-5 start for the Mavericks that featured a pair of Ryan Cole 3s, Webster rallied with a barrage from deep, heavily featuring Riley Clevenger.
Clevenger converted on a layup and a 3 to make it a 14-10 game but the Highlanders again fell behind nine in the second quarter with a quick 6-0 run buffering that cushion. Clevenger again steadied the storm with a trey and teammates Rayden Triplett and Logan Leichliter followed his lead.
The onslaught helped Webster overcome multiple eight and nine-point deficits throughout the frame, making it a three-point game at the half after another Leichliter 3.
Clevenger, who finished with 13 points in the opening half, picked it up in the second half with a layup that made it 32-21.
But the Mavericks solved the puzzle and held him to just two points the rest of the way.
“That was one of our main focus points,” Sauvage said of Clevenger. “We said at halftime and before the game started, we knew he’s a good player. And we had some focus on him but at halftime it was like you know, if somebody else beats us, so be it. Come on, guys. We can’t do that anymore. And I thought our guys did a pretty good job with it.”
“They’re a real physical team,” Webster head coach Mike Gray said. “We weren’t getting off screens. We weren’t moving enough and a good team like that is gonna play hard and we haven’t had that yet this season so that’s gonna be a learning point for us. We’ve got to move better on offense. We talked about that the whole game and at halftime and that’s one of the adjustments we needed to make. We’ve got to move, we’ve got to screen and get off screens, and we’ve got to rebound. And those two things, we really didn’t get to and they just controlled the game the whole time.”
Layton Dowdy answered Clevenger with a 3 and Brady Baker, who scored 14 in the win, added a layup to give the Mavs some breathing room. The only treys of the half for Webster, came back-to-back and courtesy of Triplett and Leichliter but were ultimately nullified by one from Will Boggess and a pair of three-point plays from Ryan Cole.
The first of two Webster technicals was assessed on the play, giving Cole another pair of free throws that he converted on to make it a 50-39 game. The Mavs held the Highlanders at arms length the rest of the way with Cole collecting five of his game-high 14 rebounds in the final frame. He also led all scorers with 22 points.
“We’re pretty good at backside rebounding and around the foul line on those long rebounds,” Webster head coach Mike Gray said. “Their guards were coming down and rebounding hard and we weren’t boxing out very good. That was one thing we talked about that we never did fix and they controlled the board’s whole game.”
The loss, Webster’s first of the season, drops the Highlanders to 6-1 while James Monroe improves to 5-2.
