Charleston – Just like the last time Wyoming East and Logan played, East freshman Broc Johnson drove the baseline in the final minute. But this time instead of hitting to go-ahead winning shot he passed it off to Konnor Fox who did the honors.
Fox’s floater with 38 seconds to play proved to be the final and decisive score of a final minute that featured a mixed bag as No. 4 Wyoming East capped a season sweep of No. 5 Logan with a 44-42 victory over the Wildcats in the Class AA quarterfinals Tuesday night at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
East moves on to the Class AA semis where it will face No.,1 Williamstown on Friday at 7:15 p.m.
“That’s two straight times against Logan that somehow Broc Johnson finds a ball on the baseline in the game-winning situation and he’s made the right play both times,” East head coach Kent McBride said. “I don’t know how it gets there. I’m perfectly fine with it getting there and what makes you proud as coaches is those are just instinctual plays. We don’t call anything, we let them roll and so far we’re 2-for-2 in letting them roll, so I’ll roll the dice again on Thursday.”
East, which won its first state tournament game since 2016, survived the final 30 seconds of the contest with Logan having a chance to tie in the final second.
Logan’s Ivan Miller was fouled on a shot attempt just before the clock expired, sending him to the free throw line with a chance to send the game to overtime. Miller’s first free throw was offline, ending the game.
The entirety of the final minute and much of the game itself was a defensive slog between a pair of familiar opponents. Scoring in the 50s and 60s when they played each other in the regular season, offense proved difficult for both teams to come by Tuesday.
Logan shot just 32 percent (17-for-53) from the field while East elevated to 43 percent (18-for-41) on 12 fewer attempts. The Wildcats were largely sunk by a fourth quarter in which they shot 21 percent (3-of-14) from the field.
“You look at the last – you just go back and watch the last six or seven possessions” McBride said. “Everything we run, they know. Everything they called late – they called timeout and tried to go to the three. We knew that play. We knew the play that they ran and we ended up getting a good ball-screen action and creating a turnover. They get the ball baseline out of bounds. Hatfield takes the ball out, Talan (Muscari) knows the play, they don’t get to run it.
“So that’s why it becomes a rock fight, because what you have is not gonna work. It comes down to players making plays and these three guys to my left (Muscari, Zach Hunt and Konnor Fox) and the guys behind you, they made one more play.”
While East’s perimeter offense struggled with the Warriors going 4-of-15 from downtown, they did find success driving to the bucket with Talan Muscari being the largest benefactor. The freshman point guard finished with 18 points on 7-of-13 shooting with just two turnovers.
“Muscari did a great job of driving on us and he’s not really done that to us too much in the past,” Logan head coach Mark Hatcher said. “But tonight he was much better. But really everybody else, we sort of kept in check a lot better than what we had and eventually, I thought we were pretty good where we were supposed to be.”
Logan led for much of the game before East took the lead at 35-34 on Fox’s layup with 1:32 to go in the third quarter.
Then came the fourth quarter where the lead changed four times before the Warriors started to pull ahead. Trailing 39-37, Muscari drove and dished to Zach Hunt who nailed a corner 3 with 2:55 remaining. Johnson expanded the lead to three over a minute later with a tip-in before Logan’s Ilderton McCormick made a jumper and split a pair of free throws to knot the game with 47 seconds to play.
Attempting to press East, Logan got discombobulated in transition opening a pass from Braxton Morgan who hit Johnson on the wing. Johnson drove, drawing a pair of defenders before dishing behind to an open Fox for the decisive bucket.
“I told coach I thought I was going to crap myself,” Fox laughed.
On Logan’s final possession it got an off-balance look at a 3, one that fell short before Miller corralled the board and drew the foul.
“Ivan is a kid that he’s a heck of a baseball player and he was one of the first ones to really buy in to me when I got the job,” Hatcher said. “He was the first one that called me and he worked extremely hard in July, August, September, October, broke his hand and worked through that. It’s disappointing he missed that foul shot. There’s no more person disappointed in himself than him.
“He thinks he’s a leader of this team and he is. And that will hurt him, but our kids love him and we’re gonna be there for him. We felt very confident that he was gonna make those and he did not lose the game at all for us. We know that.”
Muscari’s 18 points led all scorers while Hunt added 10 to join him in double figures.
Matt Hatfield led Logan with 14 points in the loss.
