Gallery by Heather Belcher
Beckley – By most metrics there were a lot of positives to take away from East Fairmont’s first half against Shady Spring.
The Bees shot 69 percent from the field, connecting on 8 of 9 field goals inside the arc over the first 16 minutes.
But that wasn’t enough to offset the 11 turnovers or the 10 3-pointers the Tigers connected on over that same span.
Shady nailed 13 total 3-pointers Thursday evening, converting at a 66 percent clip in the first half in an 82-57 rout of East Fairmont in the Little General Battle for the Armory at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center.
With the win Shady advances to the Burger King Championship game where it will face the winner of Oak Hill-Beckley.
Shady took control early and never relented. Racing out to a 9-0 lead over the first 90 seconds, the head start helped the Tigers build a cushion that was never penetrated.
“I felt like we made them feel uncomfortable early and that kind of set the tone for the game,” Shady head coach Ronnie Olson said. “Morgantown set the tone on us and they got us down. We battled back but today we changed our defense a little bit. We didn’t have to run and jump and press again once we got them down. We got in a little bit of foul trouble and had to sit back and just defend in our half court defense. I thought we could have ran some more traps at them but there was no need when you’re up 15 to 20 points. And when you’re executing, shooting the ball like that, I don’t need to do anything but sit there on the bench because they did all the work so if you look we weren’t even running our sets.
“They were literally driving the gaps and hitting guys in a corner wide open and just playing. You could find that style basketball at the YMCA. But yeah, we jumped on him early. And that kind of that’s hard when you’re playing against what we know is a good team. How good are we we won’t know till March but we know we’re a good team.”
The fast start came mostly without all-stater Ammar Maxwell having much of an impact. A pair of early fouls limited him throughout the half and he finished the night as the Tigers’ fourth leading-scorer with Jack Williams, Khi Olson and Jalon Bailey all finishing ahead of him.
Williams got things rolling with a pair of free throws and Bailey followed with a layup and a 3 to make it 7-0. Williams added another bucket before Drew Moore put the Bees on the board.
The assault continued with Bailey nailing another trey, followed by a pair of Maxwell free throws and a Gavin Davis trey. Before the Bees could collect themselves they were down 17-2.
“I think that’s what our program promotes,” Olson said. “I think our program promotes equal opportunity, if you will, because everybody is going to have equal opportunities to be a threat on the floor. And when you do that in any sport, whether it be football or basketball, when you’re a threat, it’s harder to defend. And it’s pretty simple. And that’s what we do. You’ve got to defend us inside and you’ve got to defend us outside off the dribble. So you got to pick your poison. You’re talking about Khi and Jalon, the last two years they played JV and here they are two years later getting after it. We talk about the O word all the time – opportunity. People just overuse it like the word I love you. We use opportunities and that showed to right with those guys.”
East Fairmont knocked the deficit to 12 late in the first quarter but a 40-foot heave from Khi Olson beat the buzzer, summing up the night for the Tigers. They went on to nail four more treys in the second quarter with Olson again capping the scoring of a quarter with a 3 to make it 46-26.
“I said it at halftime that our shooting was kind of the difference maker and we’ve done a lot of shooting,” Olson said. “As much as we push defense we do a ton of shooting and sometimes I’m like, ‘Am I wearing their arms out?’ We shot a ton. They’re always getting the shots because as reliant as we are on our defense, we all shoot the 3 at a high volume. If you’ve followed us over the past four years you know that’s what we do. We shoot 3 and if you’re gonna make them and play defense like that, that’s an added bonus. It’s hard but they were efficient. A couple of turnovers and the advantage of 3s and that’s the difference maker right there. I mean, we shot the ball well, but we’ve done that a lot so far this year.”
Khi Olson led the Tigers in scoring with 21 points while Jalon Bailey added 20 on 7 of 10 shooting.
Jackson Crouso led the Bees with 20 points and 11 rebounds in the loss.
