Gallery by Heather Beclher
Beckley – Leading comfortably at the half, Liberty took its foot off the gas in its matchup against Greenbrier West.
But when the Raiders needed to they closed and avoided a meltdown.
Liberty watched a 21-point lead dwindle to six with under two minutes to play but held on to topple the Cavaliers 63-55 in the New River CTC Invitational at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center.
Shooting 59 percent from the field in comparison to West’s 28 percent, the Raiders broke down West’s press for easy looks at the basket, building a 38-20 advantage at the intermission.
“The ball movement was good,” Liberty head coach Chad Williams said. “We actually work on our press break a lot so we actually like it. A lot of teams may say that but I feel like we actually do. When you speed us up you’re actually playing into our hands. The boys work the ball around and they’re not a selfish bunch. I think anybody that watches us knows that. Jalen (Cook) scores a bunch of points but he’s not the guy that demands the ball. He takes them as he gets them. I was happy with the first half, not so much with the second half.”
Cook, who scored 28 against Richwood on Tuesday, picked up where he left off nailing a pair of 3s to open the game. Following a trio of Conner Cantley buckets the Liberty lead ballooned to 12-3. Ethan Williams and Cook continued the barrage from downtown to cap a 15-0 Liberty run after a 3-3 tie.
A 3 from Chris Davis and a bucket from Brayden McClung temporally halted the momentum before Kris Bowman capped the opening frame with a jumper to make it a 20-8 game.
“It’s just like last night,” West head coach Jared Robertson said. “We’re tentative, not attacking the rim very well and they played us in a soft packline man like we saw against Poca. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, we just didn’t do a good job attacking it. It’s like last night where we didn’t have our legs or the energy. We didn’t have much want to be here I don’t think. I give our kids credit because at halftime they decided they wanted to play basketball.”
An Ethan Williams 3 to open the second half made it a 41-21 game but it also marked the start of West’s comeback bid. An 8-0 run that featured six points from Dale Boone turned the heat up before Cook canned his fourth 3 of the game. Brayden McClung had an immediate answer on the other end but a bucket from Rasean Simms and Cook’s fifth trey of the game pushed the advantage back to 17.
The advantage remained at double digits for Liberty until McClung converted a layup and free throw to trim it to seven but the charge came up short of slashing the deficit to less than five points.
“Defensively we changed and played some 1-3-1 and a little half court trap,” Robertson said. “We tried to mix both of those up. We hadn’t played either one in a game and they probably didn’t expect it and our kids got after it. I think our kids got a little upset at halftime and looked around and said we’re not playing like we’re capable. The effort was better. We made a couple shots and got a little confidence and then we started going after rebounds. That’s the kind of basketball we can play and that’s why it’s frustrating the way we played because that half shows you what we’re capable of.”
“It’s one of those things where when you have that much success in the first half you kind of take it for granted,” Williams said. “I told them before we walked out that I’d be shocked if he didn’t press because he usually does for four quarters. He kind of slowed it down and we slowed down more than we normally would and it took the boys awhile to realize this wasn’t a one-shot fluke. These guys can shoot and then it turned into a dog fight and luckily we got smarter towards the end and made some good plays. We kept going to the corner too where they could trap and that frustrated me. But they finally woke up.”
Cook led all scorers with 25 points, averaging 26.5 points per game across two games in the tournament. Brayden McClung led West with 23 in the loss.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
