Shady Spring – Shady Spring’s senior trio of Jalon Bailey, Jack Williams and Khi Olson have enjoyed a successful run of title games during their four years at Shady.
Saturday’s showing was an example of their importance to the program.
Leading a Tiger squad that shot 56 percent from the field, Olson, Bailey and Williams combined for 60 points in Shady’s 80-69 win over the visiting Tigers of Princeton on senior night in Shady Spring.
The second matchup of the season between the two teams went much like the first. Both teams again shot over 50 percent from the field and a second-half run again made the difference in a Shady victory.
After trailing by five in the second half of their first matchup, Princeton yielded a 16-4 run in the fourth quarter. On Saturday, trailing 56-51 in the third quarter, the visitors yielded a 17-5 charge across the final two quarters, giving Shady the breathing room it needed.
“I did think the whole first half, we kind of got what we wanted on offense but the thing that sucked is they got what they wanted on offense, too,” Shady Spring head coach Ronnie Olson said. “The old adage is eventually things are gonna come back to Earth and numbers are gonna come back down to where they were, and I felt like we were gonna get back to getting stops and we kind of backed off. We were picking and choosing our spots on the press and we started scoring, but then we started getting stops in a half court defense. I really felt like they started getting tired as well a little bit and we started pushing it.
“That’s a big physical team. I don’t even know how you how you rank the region.They’re as good as anybody in our region and they have tons of skill players. They got guards, they got bigs, but I thought we did a good job of kind of wearing them down a little bit. “We got what we wanted, but then we started sitting down on defense and then you translate stops with scores, and that’s simple. You’re gonna build leads and we did that. I thought we played good enough on the offensive end in the first time to build a lead, but we just couldn’t get out of that two to six-point range, because we’d hit a shot, they’d hit a shot. I’m sure it was fun for everybody else to watch, but it wasn’t fun for me to watch.”
Shady relied primarily on the same strategy it has over the last couple of weeks – attack the basket and avoid settling for jump shots. No player was more emblematic of that mindset than Bailey who scored a game-high 33 points on 12 of 17 shooting with all of his made field goals coming inside the paint.
“Jalon, when he gets going, you talk about guys going downhill, and when he gets going, it’s hard to stop him because not only is he shifty, he’s quick, he’s strong and he can work the contact,” Olson said. “You put guards on him, he’s strong and he can go through them. If he’s got bigs on him, he’s gonna go around them, and he does a good job of getting two feet in the paint.
“Sometimes he’ll go up and lay it up and sometimes he’ll get guys in the air. And he’s so fast and shifty when he gets down there it’s really hard to guard him. He’s like a good running back, you just keep feeding him and feeding him. And Jalon did a hell of a job. Not only did he do that, 33 points, but he did a heck of a job just tenacious all over the ball on defense.”
The offensive fireworks were booming early between the two teams with Princeton jumping out to a quick 4-0 lead before Eli Sexton nailed a pair of 3s to eventually make it 7-6.
Zayden Neely, who led the visiting Tigers with 25 points, proved particularly troublesome for the hosts, canning bucket after bucket for 12 first-quarter points.
The largest lead of the first half came when he nailed a layup to put Princeton up 21-16 in the first quarter but for the reminder of the half neither team led by more than five points with Shady ahead 40-36 at the intermission.
That trend carried through much of the third quarter until the host Tigers started their run. A Gabe Short layup was followed by a pair of Williams free throws, extending Shady’s lead to 54-47. Daniel Jennings eventually cut it back to five with a layup at 56-51 but the flood doors opened afterwards.
A pair of Bailey layups preceded one from Olson, putting the hosts ahead 62-52 after three. A 9-2 run to open the fourth quarter all but sealed the deal with Shady ahead 71-54 at that point.
A boat race wasn’t the way Olson and Co. preferred to win, but victory was the most important part with regional seeding to be voted upon early next week.
“We’re starting to be ready for postseason play,” Olson said. “That makes us undefeated in the region in the regular season. So that puts us at a 7-0, unblemished region record. I feel like that’s good enough to be the top seed. We’re undefeated in the region. That should sew up the No. 1 seed for us and that was one of our goals to have, so hopefully it’s enough and we can secure the top seed for home court all the way until Charleston.”
Eli Sexton added 13 points for Shady in the win.
Britt Beasley and Nick Bailey each scored 14 points in the loss.
P: 21 15 16 17 – 69
SS: 20 20 22 18 80
Princeton
Britt Beasley 14, Jayce Gum 7, Zayden Neely 25, Daniel Jennings 9, Nick Bailey 14
Shady Spring
Jack Williams 16, Eli Sexton 13, Khi Olson 11, Jalon Bailey 33, Gabe Short 7
