Charleston – In a game of runs Beckley couldn’t match Spring Valley’s second-half charges.
The Timberwolves ripped an 11-0 run late in the third quarter and a 17-3 charge to close out the game en route to a 61-44 victory over the Flying Eagles Wednesday night in a Class AAAA quarterfinal matchup in the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
The win sends Spring Valley to the semifinals where it will face No. 1 Spring Mills on Friday at 11:15 a.m.
After shooting just 28 percent (8-of-28) in the first half, Spring Valley maxed out in the second half connecting on 19-of-25 shot attempts. Much of it came in the paint where they scored 26 points in the final two quarters.
“They got rolling with us not really standing in front of them,” Beckley head coach Ron Kidd said. “I think a lot of it was getting layups. They saw the ball go in, we didn’t see the ball going in. That’s what it looked like to me.”
Beckley’s offense struggled through the first half as well but managed to stay afloat by connecting on four 3-pointers en route to a 26-19 lead at the intermission. It was largely buoyed by a hot start that saw Beckley score 19 points in the opening frame while failing to break double digits in the final three.
“It seemed like we couldn’t get situated the way we needed to,” Kidd said. “I thought the middle was wide open. I take the blame for not calling the right play or doing the right thing at that time. I don’t blame our kids. I kind of blame myself for our offensive performance.”
Beckley, which led by as many as 10 points in the first half, saw its largest lead of second when Zyon Hawthorne netted a 3 before slowly watching the Timberwolves whittle the advantage down to four points at 33-29.
Then came the first wave.
A Colton Caldwell jumper trimmed the deficit to two, kicking off the 11-0 run over a two-minute span that put Spring Valley ahead 40-33. A tip-in by Jaylon Walton just before the buzzer snapped the skid and Beckley eventually clawed its way back to within a possession after Walton converted on a three-point play with 6:22 to play.
That field goal proved to be the final one of Walton’s career and the penultimate one of Beckley’s season. A 6-0 spurt engineered by Harrison Riggs pushed the advantage to 50-41 with Hawthorne snapping it on a 3. That proved to be final bucket of the year for the Flying Eagles who watched Spring Valley finish the game with another 11-0 run.
“One thing they were doing, they were sitting back in the zone and kind of resting and our kids was fighting trying to play man the man the whole game,” Kidd said. “We kind of lost our legs. That’s the first time I ever seen us lose our legs. That’s because of the way they play. But we lost our legs, they kept their legs by playing that zone.”
“I hate to give away any secrets, but we really play man,” Spring Valley head coach Rick Chaffin said. “We look like we’re in a zone, but really we’re kind of matched and we’re playing man. Sometimes we’re switching, sometimes we’re not switching. The kids, like I said, we have four seniors, a junior that’s played, and those guys know what we want done. They kind of followed the game plan.”
Hawthorne led Beckley with 16 points while Preston Clary netted 12. Jaylon Walton, the only senior in Beckley’s starting lineup, finished with six points.
Harrison Riggs led Spring Valley with 18 points in the win.
