Gallery by Karen Akers
Logan has become accustomed to third quarter explosions this year.
Signature wins against Shady Spring and Capital have both come on the back of strong third-quarter showings.
Saturday proved to be more of the same for the Wildcats.
The visitors from Logan scored 29 points in the third quarter, turning a 24-22 halftime deficit into an eventual 64-46 win over old foe Beckley in the New River Invitational at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center.
Trailing by two at the intermission, the Wildcats opened the third quarter with a 9-0 run and never looked back.
“This was our first game away from home and (Beckley) came out early, made some shots and put some pressure on us,” Logan coach Zach Green said. “I thought late in the second quarter we kind of settled in. Late in the second half – we’ve played really well in the second half. It’s not something that’s just happened tonight. It’s something that’s happened all year and we kind of expected to go on a little run when we got out here. We went on a really big run.”
Renewing a rivalry that has featured numerous state tournament matchups between the two, the young Flying Eagles carried the torch early, jumping out to a 9-2 lead. Five points from freshman Braden Hawthorne helped fuel the charge but an eventual three-point play from Logan’s Scott Browning made it an 11-8 game.
A long ball from Beckley’s Elijah Redfern cushioned the lead heading into the second frame, spurring a 9-1 run that gave the host Flying Eagles a 20-9 lead, forcing Green to call a timeout.
“I thought our kids just came out with some emotion and fire and wanted to win,” Beckley coach Ron Kidd said.
The Wildcats responded with an 8-0 run, trimming the deficit to two points before the intermission.
A paltry 29 percent shooting from the floor in the opening half hampered their efforts to take the lead, but the third quarter told a different story.
A three-point play from Garrett Williamson gave the Wildcats the lead almost immediately and back-to-back buckets courtesy of Jaxon Cogar pushed the Logan lead to seven. A pair of Redfern 3s sandwiched an Aiden Slack long ball, cutting the Beckley deficit back to four but a 17-0 run immediately after put the host’s hopes of winning to bed.
When the smoke cleared Logan led 51-34 after three quarters.
“They blitz you in the third quarter,” Kidd said. “I thought we did some things that we didn’t do in the first half like turning the ball over. I thought we had a couple uncontested turnovers that they didn’t force. We did it on our own throwing the ball away. They’re a good team though, don’t get me wrong. We rushed a lot of our passes and made mistakes.”
For the quarter the Wildcats were 9 of 11 on attempts inside the arc, shooting 63 percent from the field as a whole.
“I don’t know what it is,” Green said of his team’s tendency to explode in the third quarter. “If I figure it out I want to start doing it in the first half. We’ve been unbelievable in the second half. I don’t know what it is but we’re going to need to sit down and figure it out because we need to duplicate it in two halves like that.”
On the flip side the Flying Eagles struggled shooting from the floor in the second half, hitting on a 29 percent clip on 17 shot attempts. They also turned the ball over 16 times throughout the evening.
“I thought we did a much better job of sitting down and guarding the ball,” Green said. “We tried to do a few different things like try to get the ball out of Redfern’s hands and make some other guys make some plays. I thought we had some success with that in the second quarter and it carried over to the third quarter and the fourth.”
Browning led the Wildcats with 17 points while Jackson Tackett added 15 to go along with 12 rebounds. Williamson and Cogar also scored in double figures with 14 and 10, respectively.
Redfern led Beckley with 17 in the loss.
The Flying Eagles drop to 2-4 while Logan improves to 6-0.
Email: Tylerjackson@lootpress.ocm and follow on Twitter @tjack94
L: 9 13 29 13 – 64
B: 14 10 10 12 – 46
Logan
S. Browning 17, G.Williamson 14, A. Slack 6, J. Cogar 10, J. Tackett 15, C. Maynard 2
Beckley
Elijah Redfern 17, Braden Hawthorne 8, Hill 9, Sam Peck 4, Isaiah Patterson 8
3-point goals – L: 5 (Browning 2, Williamson 2, Slack 1); B: 6 (Redfern 3, Hawthorne 2, Hill 1).
