Beckley – Coby Dillon called the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center home for three years when he played for Beckley.
Now a star at Shady Spring, he’s still playing like he’s right at home in the historic venue.
Dillon scored 21 points, crossing 1,000 for his career Monday as Shady Spring upended Westside 69-53 in the New River CTC Invitational in Beckley.
Dillon finished 8-for-16 shooting from the field in the win, encapsulating an offensive performance that saw Shady shoot over 50 percent (26-for-49) from the floor as a team.
“We’ve been working on getting downhill and guys are moving off the ball and getting layups,” Shady Spring head coach Ronnie Olson said. “We knew they had length. They weren’t super strong inside but their length bothers you some times and I thought our guards did a good job of attacking them.
“We hit gaps and guys would come back and that’s kind of the evolution. – we work hard on defense but the evolution is we work hard to get downhill and it might not be on the first drive, it might be the second guy. We work on that in practice – finishing one-on-ones and stuff like that.”
The Renegades found themselves trailing regularly throughout the first half, last leading when Jacob Mullins capped a three-point play for a 7-6 lead. From there the Tigers embarked on a 12-2 run, getting a layup from Eli Sexton, a three-point play from Coby Dillon and a layup from Cutter Boggs on a drop-off pass from Dillon.
When the dust settled Shady led 18-9 after a quarter, expanding the advantage to 20-9 on a Jace Lilly layup early on the frame. But behind the efforts of guards Cooper Hatfield and Bradyn Waldron, the Renegades clawed back into contention.
Trailing 32-16 after Dillon’s second 3 of the frame, Hatfield and Waldron nailed a pair of free throws each with Waldron hitting a step-back 3 before the buzzer sounded for the half, cutting the deficit to 32-24 at the break. Layups from Hendrix Cook and Waldron capped a 12-0 run across the two halves, bringing Westside to within four points early in the frame.
That was when the underclassmen started to pitch in for Shady.
Three-pointers from Jace Bailey and Gabe Short pushed the Tiger lead back out to nine while another long ball from Myles Clark later in the frame made it a 44-31 lead.
“I think we talked about riding the course and of course we’re a good defensive team,” Olson said. “They’re a good team and they play hard but I felt like we were the better team and you don’t always have that every night but I did feel like we were the better team and they played hard. I felt like if we rode the course and continued playing defense and getting stops it was juts a matter of time to where I felt like we’d get out in transition and start getting buckets and we did. They called some fouled and got both team in the bonus but we righted the ship playing defense.”
Shady pushed its lead back out to 15 points before Westside responded with another 7-0 run but a Dillon layup put the Tigers ahead by double digits for the remainder of the night. The only intrigue left afterwards was whether or not Dillon would hit 1,000 career points, a mark he crossed with just under three minutes to play.
“He’s so stoic because he was like, ‘Can we please get this over with and finish the game?” Olson laughed. “I feel like he’s the type of guy that will enjoy it at the end of the season. For me personally you want your guys to have stuff special. In the state tournament I put somebody in to get the steal record.
“I want my guys to have individual accolades because they buy so much into the team concept. Coby, he really didn’t care. Obviously we wanted it at home but this is still – he’s played here for three years and to get it is bittersweet. We knew he’d get it but I didn’t know if he’d get it tonight. We thought it might get rough and muddled up but he kind of took over like he usually does.”
Bailey and Sexton joined Dillon in double figures with 10 points each while Dillon added seven assists.
Waldron led Westside and all scorers with 22 points on 7 of 17 shooting while Hatfield netted 16 points in the loss.
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