Beckley – In a game largely highlighted by underclassmen, it was a freshman who made the most significant shot of the night.
Shady Spring senior Coby Dillon hit freshman Jace Bailey on a dive to the basket with under five seconds left as the latter laid in the winning layup to give the Tigers a 52-51 victory over Wyoming East in the Burger King division championship game of the Little General Battle for the Armory Tuesday night in Beckley.
The loss is the first of the season for Wyoming East which came in ranked No. 3 in the latest Class AA coaches poll. For Shady the win moves the Tigers to 4-2 following a 1-2 start to the season.
Dillon spent most of the night terrorizing the Warriors with a team-high 18 points but the pass to Bailey proved to be his biggest play of the night.
“We knew we were going to get a double screen up high and Wyoming East did a good job getting over the screens,” Dillon said. “I drove and they did a really good job of helping – Konnor (Fox) stepped up, Broc (Johnson) stepped up and I was about to turn around and about shot it. I saw Jace and Jace made a great cut, game-winning layup.”
“(Dillon) gets trapped, hits me, I drive and I shoot a layup for the game,” Bailey said.
It was a play that seemed unlikely to occur early as Wyoming East threatened to runaway in the opening minutes, taking a 12-0 lead on the strength of 3s from Johnson and Talan Muscari.
Shady broke its spell on a Dillon layup but another 3 from Johnson, who netted a game-high 19 points, gave East its largest advantage of the night at 13 points. Shady settled in with a layup from Eli Sexton and a 3 from Bailey and later scored the first six points of the second frame to pull back within the thick of the game.
By the end of the first half the Tigers trimmed the deficit to four points at 27-23.
“We want to pressure and I feel like we were giving them what they wanted. We were three feet away to start the game,” Shady head coach Ronnie Olson said. “They run a lot of great sets and Kent’s a freaking great coach. You won’t find a better coach than Kent. He was a helluva player with an IQ and as a point guard would dissect. He does the same thing as a coach. We’re three feet off and middle school could run a set if you’re three feet off.”
East distanced itself again early in the third, pushing the lead back to nine but sophomore Gabe Short gave Shady a 1-2 punch alongside Dillon, converting on a three-point play and later giving the Tigers a 43-42 lead early in the fourth quarter.
Dillon followed with a 25-foot pull up 3 to push the lead to 46-42.
“I love shooting the 3s on this court especially but couldn’t really find my shot until later in the game,” Dillon smiled. “I sort of was feeling it, we got our first lead, a big stop a rebound and I was sort of pushing it and they sagged off a little bit so I shot it from deep. Once I saw it go in that was sort a momentum changer.”
The four-point advantage remained Shady’s largest of the evening, keeping the Warriors within striking distance and they capitalized.
Johnson, who scored 11 of his 19 points in the second half, converted on a layup to make it a 50-49 game and Muscari later followed up with the go-ahead layup with just over 16 seconds to play, converting despite breaking his nose in the first half.
“He looked at me and said, ‘Coach, is my nose broke?'” McBride said. “I looked over at him and said, ‘Yes it is.’ It’s what that kid is. He’s been that way his whole life, his nose looks like a C right now and he didn’t come out of the game. The thing about Talan is when that happens, you don’t think about babying him. He’s out there, he’s a bulldog so you play him like he’s a bulldog.”
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