Gallery by Karen Akers
Westside head coach Shawn Jenkins likes what he sees in big man Ashton Reed when it comes to rebounding. The veteran coach just wants to see more consistency from his sophomore center.
Monday night, when the Renegades battled Class A No. 5 (tie) Webster County in the New River CTC Invitaional at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center, Reed showed why his coach has such high expectation for him.
After dominating the glass all night, Reed grabbed the most important offensive rebound of the game when Evan Colucci’s game-winning attempt was just off the mark.
With his team trailing 62-61, Reed grabbed the backside rebound and was fouled on the stickback with 1.1 seconds left.
If he was nervous, the young sophomore never showed it dropping in both free throws for a 63-62 win over the Highlanders.
“I was just thinking that I had to get that ball, put it back up and ice it for the team,” Reed said. “It was hard contact and I tried to score through it, but I couldn’t get it to go in.”
While securing the rebound was key, Reed still had to step up and and hit both free throws to secure the win.
“I was right behind Evan when he shot it and I thought it was going in,” Jenkins said. “I heard them say they were going to go man-to-man, so we ran a set to Evan and got him open in the corner. Ashton went hard for the rebound and got the foul. He hit the two big foul shots and it was game over.”
The game was tight for the majority of three quarters with Webster leading by one after the first quarter and Westside leading by one at the break.
With the game tied and just under two minutes left in the third period, all-stater Rye Gadd helped give the Highlanders a six-point lead with back-to back slams to end the quarter.
Webster then expanded the lead to 10 points with 5:22 to play and still maintained an eight-point advantage with four minutes left in the contest.
With his team in dire straits, Reed turned up the heat on the offensive glass to help pull the Renegades within one point with 1:50 to play.
“Ashton wants to take a breather every now and then, but I am wanting him to play harder,” Jenkins said. “When he gets it in his head that he is going to crash the boards, he dominates those boards. He was getting some major rebounds tonight.”
Austin Cline gave Westside the lead by hitting both ends of the 1-and-1, but the lead would bounce back-and-forth five times in the final minute setting up Reed’s big moment.
“I was frustrated with the whole game,” Webster County head coach Mike Gray said. “We didn’t show any effort tonight and I feel like we are a much better team than what we showed. We were sloppy and our passes weren’t crisp. We can’t beat up on ourselves like that. On those backside (rebounds), we had a guy there a lot, but he wasn’t boxing his side out. He was shooting over to help ball-side.”
Colucci led Westside with 22 and Reed finished with 15. Gadd led the Highlanders with 29 and Dakota Blankenship had 10.
Both teams have one more game remaining in the tournament. Westside will play Class A No. 1 Greater Beckley Christian Thursday at 8:15 p.m. while Webster County will play Class A No. 2 James Monroe Saturday morning at 11:30 a.m.
WC: 15 16 17 21 – 63
W: 16 14 18 14 – 62
Webster County 62
Riley Clevenger 3, Rye Gadd 29, Redden Triplett 8, Andrew Hardaway 6, Dakota Blankenship 10, Logan Leichliter 6
Westside 63
Evan Colucci 22, Dale Bledsoe 2, Ashton Reed 15, Ryan Anderson 3, Hunter Lester 5, Austin Cline 2, Kody Blackburn 8, Shandell Adkins 6
3-point goals – WC: 4 (Clevenger, Gadd, Leichliter 2); W: 7 (Colucci 4, Anderson 1, Blackburn 2)
