Gallery by Karen Akers
Shady Spring – Defending Class AAA champion Shady Spring certainly looked the part in its season opener.
The Tigers forced 34 turnovers and canned 50 percent of their 3-point shots in an 81-41 win over sectional foe Westside Tuesday in Shady Spring.
The Tigers’ assault from beyond the arc started early with Cameron Manns draining a triple to open the game, parting the floodgates for a team that canned 14 long balls on the night.
“I think we’ve been trying to implement a little more shooting in practice,” Shady coach Ronnie Olson said. “Obviously you’re going to shoot a little better at home and 50 percent is pretty high, but I’d expect them to shoot a little better. We’ve been stroking it though. We work on our shooting just as much as we work on our defense. That doesn’t surprise me that we hit that many but they definitely showed out for the community and the school.”
Triples from Braden Chapman and Manns pushed the lead to 9-2 and accounted for two of the five long balls the hosts canned in the opening quarter. But defending the three-point line wasn’t the biggest obstacle facing the Renegades – breaking the Tigers’ press and taking care of the ball was.
The visitors turned the ball over 10 times in the opening frame, trailing 24-10 heading into the second. It also led to them getting off just three shots inside the arc.
“Their pressure is amazing,” Westside coach Shawn Jenkins said. “It’s really good and they’re intense. They just were on you. They’re probably going to do that to a lot of teams, not just us. But we’ve got to get better from that. We’ve got to learn from that and we’ve got to work on it a bit more, maybe even with patience. We’ve got to put our guys in better positions and so it’s just something we’ve got to work on – handling that pressure better.”
The second quarter brought some relief for the Renegades who held the Tigers scoreless for the first three minutes and even slashed the deficit to 10 with buckets from Evan Colucci and and Ryan Anderson. Still, the Tigers’ defense proved overwhelming. Westside scored just once more in the final five minutes of the half, turning the ball over 10 more times to trail 36-16 heading into the break.
Out of the half Shady put the nail in the coffin, outscoring the Renegades 26-12 in the third quarter and cruising the rest of the way.
Junior guard Cole Chapman had a hand in the breakaway, scoring 12 of his game-high 20 points in the third quarter after mustering just three in the first half. His shooting also improved. He was just 1-of-8 from the field in the first half and countered in the second half by shooting 7-of-9. He was one of four Tigers in double figures. The other three were Braden Chapman (17), Jaedan Holstein (10) and Cameron Manns (10).
“I think at the beginning of practice and scrimmages I don’t think some of them were used to playing with each other,” Olson said. “We had Todd (Duncan) last year and have Ammar who didn’t play as much last year and Jack (Williams) who’s a freshman. Now those guys are playing huge minutes offensively and now they’re used to finding each other on the floor. They know where their spots are and you can see that in the scoring. We tell them all the time that if Braden’s scoring 40, we’re not going to win the state championship. Not that we don’t want Braden scoring 40. We just wanted everybody to eat. There’s enough food at the table and we always tell them to eat. Some may just get a second helping one night.”
Leading Westside in scoring was Ashton Reed with nine points.
Shady will return to action Friday when it travel to Wyoming East while Westside will host its tipoff classic that same day.
Westside (0-1)
Evan Colucci 8, Dale Bledsoe 5, Ashton Reed 9, Bryson Blankenship 6, Ryan Anderson 2, Brady St. Clair 4, Owen Keeney 4, Ethan Justice 3
Shady Spring (1-0)
Braden Chapman 17, Cole Chapman 20, Jaedan Holstein 10, Cameron Manns 10, Ammar Maxwell 7, Sam Jordan 2, Jack Williams 6, Latrell Hairston 3, Khi Olson 3, Jalen Bailey 3.
W: 10 6 12 13 – 41
SS: 24 12 26 19 – 81
3-point goals – W: 3 (Colucci, Bledsoe, Justice); SS: 14 (B. Chapman 3, C. Chapman 3, C. Manns 3, A. Maxwell 1, J. Williams 2, K. Olson 1, J. Bailey 1.
