Photos by Tina Laney
Shady Spring – Shady Spring head coach Ronnie Olson spent his first four years chasing the sectional title only to finish as the bridesmaid.
His fortunes turned in 2021 and haven’t changed since.
Behind a smothering defensive effort, his Tigers collected their fourth consecutive Class AAA Region 3 Section 1 title, bouncing PikeView 64-46 Friday night in Shady Spring.
With the win Shady will host Lewis County Wednesday with a spot in the state tournament on the line. PikeView will travel to Sissonville with the same stakes.
“I could never chase down that sectional championship,” Olson said. “But to win four in a row now, and I talked to our guys about that. In life I think it’s human nature to take things for granted sometimes. You can’t help it but I try to tell the guys all the time don’t take this time for granted. Don’t take the people you love for granted and don’t take anything around you for granted. To win here and win like that, that’s why I’m not upset.
“People will say, ‘Oh, it was maybe not as (lopsided) as I thought it was going to be’ but it was what I thought it was gonna be. You don’t see as cutting the nets down for sectional championship tonight. You know, we want to hopefully do that Wednesday night. But I’m very happy with the way that we played and can we do better? Yeah, but it’s survive and advance. We did things we wanted to and that’s all that matters. And now we get a couple of days to prep for Lewis County in our place.”
The Tigers were quick out of the gate in both halves and the Panthers chased them all night as a result.
Jack Williams kicked off the scoring for Shady with a jumper and Gavin Davis followed with a 3. Davis was good again in transition after a steal before PikeView broke its dry spell with a free throw. But the onslaught continued with a Khi Olson jumper and Ammar Maxwell layup, pushing Shady’s lead to 13-3 four minutes into the game.
Turnovers were the Achilles heel of the visiting Panthers during the stretch as their first three possessions ended in turnovers, all stolen by Shady.
By the time Shady held its 13-3 advantage the turnover counter sat at six for PikeView. With nowhere to go but up the Panthers headed in that direction, cutting the deficit to six with buckets from Elijah Hall on consecutive possessions.
Shady still maintained the advantage though, leading 15-7 after a quarter.
PikeView managed to cut its turnovers from seven in the first quarter to four in the second but that was just half the battle.
The other half was hitting shots and doing so at a 33 percent (3 of 9) clip didn’t aid the cause. Compounding those struggles was a Tiger offense that shot 54 percent (7 of 13) in the frame, adding 16 points to its ledger.
“The pressure is unreal with them,” PikeView head coach Les Farmer said. “I mean, there’s a lot of contact, a lot of different things that can transpire out to that. I mean, they run that double trap there, they call it yellow they run the double trap. We try to feed off the guys to get the middle lane and we hit it two or three times but when you’re pressured like that so much and the physicality – my whole thing at halftime was we had a master the physicality. If they were going to bump us we had to bump them. If the referees are gonna call it loose we got to make sure that we match their physicality. And I felt like we did that several different times in the second half, maybe some in the first half but definitely more so in the second half. But this is long game and we’re not deep enough.”
Leading 31-17 at the break, the Tigers put their feline foes to sleep early in the third.
Maxwell finished twice at the rim and Williams added a jumper for a 6-0 spurt to make it 37-17. The game was never competitive in score afterwards with Shady pushing its advantage to 25 points late in the third. It came in a half that saw the Tigers pick up 10 more steals. Shady finished with 19 steals, with PikeView committing 22 turnovers on the evening.
It was a welcome performance for Olson and the Tigers after they struggled with the Panthers for a half when the teams met on Jan. 30
“I think that they knew they got our attention down there at their place,” Olson said. “That game they led. We watched it again and when we played here they didn’t have one of their best guards and he’s a good coach. I knew he’s gonna do a bunch of things to switch it up but like I said, most teams in sectionals when they play a team three times it’s gonna be closer than it was in the first two unless the team just cannot play. I knew what it was gonna be tough and for us to win like that, I felt we were good at halftime.
“I felt like in the second quarter we were good. And to feel that in a sectional game is good. I’m happy with this. This is a state tournament type game and I’m happy with the way that they made us think and made us play because we don’t want to we want to win a sectional by blowing everyone out. Obviously we’ll take it winning by 60 but if you could choose the way you want to win, it’d be a game where you have to battle for four quarters and think. That sets us up for a good regional game and focuses us on playing for four quarters and that’s what the state tournament is gonna be.”
Maxwell led Shady and all scorers with 20 points while Jack Williams netted 12.
Jared Vestal led PikeView with 12 points in the loss.
PV: 7 10 8 21 – 46
SS: 15 16 17 15 – 63
PikeView
Austin Bennett 3, Drew Damewood 9, Elijah Hall 8, Bryson Bailey 5, David Thomas 6, Jared Vestal 12, Zack Rose 3
Shady Spring
Jack Williams 12, Ammar Maxwell 20, Brody Radford 4, Gavin Davis 10, Khi Olson 6, Jalon Bailey 12,
