Gallery by Heather Belcher
White Sulphur Springs – Ronnie Olson figured the law of averages would work in his team’s favor.
His Shady Spring squad missed 12 layups in the first half and Cabell Midland star Dominic Schmidt made contested jumper after jumper, each seemingly more difficult than the last.
It’s unknown if he placed that bet in the casino portion of The Greenbrier but if he had he would’ve cashed in.
The Tigers ripped a 15-0 run in the third quarter of Friday’s contest against the Knights, erasing a seven-point deficit and earning a 60-52 win at Colonial Hall in the Battle for the Springhouse at The Greenbrier.
Converting on just 30 percent (11 of 37) of their shots in the first half, the Tigers connected at a 65 percent clip in the second half (15 of 23) to flip the game.
“(Schmidt) is one of the few guys in the state that can make shots that are contested and he did and he kind of dictated tempo,” Olson said. “I felt like we got a little more caught up in officiating than our defensive gameplan. The 12 missed layups, that’s not going to equate to anything good. I felt that was a carbon copy of a couple of games we played in this year like James Monroe and Bluefield. We’re missing easy shots and once we started gathering and expecting contact and following through, we started finishing through. But they dictated tempo in the first half and I did not like the flow of the game, the energy of the game or anything except the beauty of the floor.”
Schmidt, who scored 19 points in the first half, got to work early with a pair of free throws to get the Knights on the board. A pair of 3s later in the opening frame from the lefty put Midland up 11-9 before Shady’s own lefty, Braden Chapman, knotted the game with a layup. It led to a 13-13 tie after a quarter before Midland gained an advantage in the second.
The Knights parlayed a 29 percent shooting quarter from Shady into a 32-27 halftime lead, one that was nearly larger before Cole Chapman beat the buzzer with a 3 for Shady.
Relentless, the Knights took their largest lead of the second half when Schmidt capped a 3-point play with a free throw to provide his team with a 35-28 advantage.
Then the avalanche ensued.
Braden Chapman scored on a pair of layups, Jaedan Holstein scored on a putback and Cam Manns notched his own layup to give Shady a 36-35 advantage and kickstart the decisive 15-0 run.
The lead ballooned to eight at 43-35 before Isaac Petitt snapped the skid for the Knights. Still, the reigning Springhouse champions never regained the lead, trailing by five points after the third and 16 later after Cole Chapman nailed a 3 halfway through the fourth.
“We stopped pressuring fullcourt (in the second half),” Olson said. “We weren’t jumping so there was no reason to pressure full court and put ourselves in foul trouble and let them go downhill on us and go around us. I felt like we sat better when our help was there. We contested the shots and we weren’t gambling as much as we did. We just sat on them and made (Schmidt) make it hard on himself. I know that sounds crazy but we made him make it hard on himself and what I mean by that is every shot he made was tough. Then we talked about hitting the offensive glass.
“At halftime I said ‘Guys, there’s not a game we played in the last four years where we haven’t went on a run in the second half. There’s no need to panic or rush.’ I knew we would. We just needed to stay the course on defense and they did it. It started in the third quarter and then the offense took off and that’s the separation in the game.”
Braden Chapman led Shady with 19 points and 12 rebounds with six coming on the offensive end. Manns finished with 17 points on 8 of 11 shooting while Ammar Maxwell added 16. Cole Chapman pitched in six and Holstein two to account for the rest of Shady’s scoring.
Schmidt was held to five points in the second half, finishing with 24.
Shady will play the winner of Class AAAA No.2 Parkersburg South and No. 5 Greenbrier East on Saturday evening.
