Gallery by Karen AkersĀ
Shady Spring – Greater Beckley hasn’t backed down from a challenge this season, running a gauntlet that’s featured Class AAAA teams such as George Washington, Greenbrier East and Princeton.
The Crusaders finally met their match on the big school level.
Defending Class AAA champion Shady Spring outscored Class A No. 2 Greater Beckley 25-6 in the second quarter and maintained a double-digit lead throughout the second half, beating the Crusaders 66-52 Monday night at Shady.
Leading 8-7 in the first quarter, the Crusaders (10-3) appeared to be in for the long haul.
Ten minutes later that wasn’t the case.
The Tigers (14-1) closed the half on a 31-8 run, leaving little doubt about the outcome.
“I think they just out-toughed us in the second quarter,” Greater Beckley coach Justin Arvon said. “They were willing to run the floor, get out on the break, take care of the basketball and it doesn’t hurt when they knock down some shots. We weren’t willing to respond. You would hope a 25-6 quarter could be more like 23-14 or something to keep you in the game if you’re willing to defend or execute on the offensive end. But we didn’t do that and they’re a state title team in my opinion. You can’t do that against good teams.”
Leading the charge for the Tigers was all-state guard Braden Chapman, who’s struggled with his shot this season. Monday did little to change that with a 4 of 15 showing from the field, but he found a way to continuously bother the Crusaders, finishing with 15 points and 14 rebounds as well as six assists and five steals.
“I know if my shot’s not falling I’ve got teammates who will hit shots,” Chapman said. “I just try to help any way I possibly can to get the win and tonight it happened to be rebounding and defense and I think I did a pretty good job.”
The defense of Chapman helped hold the Crusaders’ talented guard duo of Kaden Smallwood and Kendrick Wilson to 4 of 14 shooting from the field in the first half. It was a catalyst for the Shady’s first-half success.
After back-to back buckets from Smallwood gave the Crusaders an 8-7 lead, the senior was shutout for the remainder of the first half.
With Shady leading 13-10 after the first quarter, a quick 10-0 run that featured buckets from Cole Chapman, and a 3-pointer from Sam Jordan staked Shady to a 23-10 advantage. A layup from Sherlock Padmore broke the drought temporality before the first of two 3s in the quarter from Ammar Maxwell sent the crowd into a frenzy.
The visitors never came within 12 points the rest of the way.
“I feel like we turned the pressure up,” Shady coach Ronnie Olson said. “I felt like we were playing hard and there was a lot of nervous energy at the beginning. It was such a big game with a big build up and a great crowd. But I thought we just had a lot of nervous energy to start. They really turned the defense up in the second half. If you go back to all of our games, I don’t think you can pinpoint a specific quarter but we always have a big quarter where we blow the game open.
“Primarily its been our third quarter but that second quarter we really kind of put them out of the game.Ā I just thought the ball pressure and transition offense – we did what we do in the second quarter and we did it great. That’s what busted the game open.”
Perhaps the most glaring statistics aside from the point totals after the first half were rebound totals. The Tigers won the battle on the boards decisively in the first half, 25-9, capitalizing on those opportunities.
“That’s all toughness to me,” Arvon said. “It you’re not willing to do things like that and box out then you’re just not tough. Now our kids are tough and they came back the second half and executed a little better – not well – on the defensive boards. I don’t know the rebounding numbers but I’m sure they were better. We got it down to 14 at one point and they’re just really good. I don’t know what else to say. We would’ve hoped to give them a better run tonight and I would hope if there’s another cancellation we can get another game with them. But I’m proud of our kids for their second-half effort.”
“I really think Cam (Manns), Sam and Braden did a good job of crashing the glass and getting ball out,” Olson said. “Braden probably led the team in rebounding. We talk about crashing the glass and we wrote on the board we wanted to turn rebounds into easy points. I’ve said it before, we’ve turned into a really good offensive rebounding team and it doesn’t matter how big we are. Our guards, they rebound like bigs and we challenged them and they accepted it.”
Chapman’s 15 points paced Shady while Maxwell finished with 14 points and nine rebounds. Wilson led all scorers with 21 while Smallwood added 18 in the loss.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com
GBC (10-3): 10 6 15 21 – 52
SS (14-1): 13 25 13 15 – 66
Greater Beckley
Kaden Smallwood 18, John Rose 3, Sherlock Padmore 8, Kendrick Wilson 21, Dean-David Kadjo 2
Shady Spring
Braden Chapman 15, Cole Chapman 6, Jaedan Holstein 9, Cameron Manns 12, Ammar Maxwell 14, Sam Jordan 8, Gavin Davis 2
3-point goals – GBC: 1 (Wilson 1); SS: 6 (B. Chapman 2, Maxwell 3, Jordan 1)