Charleston – It’s hard to beat a good team three times in a row.
Six? No problem for Wyoming East.
The No. 2 seed Warriors capitalized on a 30-point outing from soph0more all-stater Broc Johnson en route to an 81-56 demolition of No. 7 Logan Wednesday night in a Class AA quarterfinal matchup in the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
The win sends the Warriors to Friday’s Class AA semifinal where they’ll face No. 3 Bluefield on Friday at 9:30 a.m. for the third time this season.
Wednesday’s win marked East’s sixth consecutive victory over the Wildcats dating back to last January when Kent McBride took the job.
“It’s hard to beat a team three times, it’s really hard to beat a team six times,” Logan head coach Mark Hatcher said. “They beat us six times in a row now. They’re a very good basketball team, very well-coached. They’ve got several weapons as I’m sure you all saw on full display tonight.
“They were pretty much hitting on every cylinder. I think we tried a couple different things that worked in the regular season. We gave them a really good scare at Logan and gave them a couple good runs at their place at times and we tried to do the same thing here. It just didn’t work for us tonight. Again, they’re very tough.”
Johnson was the main weapon of choice Wednesday, collecting his 30 points on 10-of-19 shooting, including 4-of-8 from beyond the arc. The performance was a concerted one after Johnson scored just four points and shot 2-of-9 (0-for-5 from 3) in the Warriors quarterfinal matchup against Logan from a year ago.
“The thing about (Johnson) is we came down here last year, and he’ll probably comment on this, he played terrible,” McBride said. “He played terrible. He was a first team all-state guy but he played terrible down here. When we left, that guy just got to work. So when you get in these moments our conversation before the game was, ‘It’s not one game. We’ve got 68 practices and 22 games. We’re ready.’ He was ready so in the time when the lights went off – it took us awhile to get comfortable in our own skin as a team. They look at him to do that and he did it.”
“I think (Hatcher) told me to stop scoring and I told him I had to makeup for last year,” Johnson smiled. “I did not perform well here last year and I’m glad to make up for it this year.”
In addition to Johnson’s efficient outing the Warriors dominated the glass again, out-rebounding the Wildcats 47-28, turning their 25 offensive rebounds in to 23 second-chance points.
“We talk about what wins in March and when we sit down and talk about how we’re going to play and what we’re going to do, it’s designed for this week,” McBride said. “Everything we do is designed for this week and these guys bought into that. When you play that way, it travels. We talked about it before the game – when you play a team as many times as we’ve played Logan, the margin is razor thin because there’s nothing we can do that they don’t know and very little we can do that they don’t know.
“It’s all about who’s a little tougher and who does the small things right. Statistics say the team that wins the rebounding battle wins 77 percent of the games. We stress on it. We have 6-foot-9, a 6-foot-5 wing and Braxton Morgan who’s a man child. I think it’s a big advantage for us and when you offensive rebound 74 percent of your misses you’re doing something right. Maybe you’re missing too much but we’re getting them back.”
East took control of the game early, taking the lead for good at 8-6 when Johnson netted his first 3 and compounding that with another from Braxton Morgan.
It was the start of a 9-0 run with free throws from Johnson and Kegan Davidson capping the spurt.
East led 18-12 at the end of the first quarter, blitzing the Wildcats in the second.
With Logan big Ivan Miller benched with foul trouble, the Warriors used their rebounding prowess to build their cushion. A pair of second-chance buckets from Konnor Fox powered the start of a 10-0 run with another Morgan 3 and a second-chance bucket from Braedy Johnston comprising the spurt.
The end result was a 28-12 East lead that forced a Logan timeout.
“Oddly enough we were really, really guarding,” McBride said. “If you go back and look at the shots they were taking and where we were defensively, they were really, really disruptive. When we are disruptive defensively – I think our offense is good all the time but when we’re disruptive defensively our offense is really good. I thought that keyed everything we did from that point forward and these guys were relaxed the whole time. Our defensive mindset was really, really good.”
East pushed the lead to as many as 17 in the first half on the strength of a Johnson 3 and Fox dunk but watched Logan trim the deficit to 12 at the intermission.
The Wildcats managed to cut the deficit down to 10 but Johnson delivered another gut punch 3 at 49-36, helping East extend its advantage back to 14 after three.
A quick 4-0 spurt from Johnson extended the lead to 18. Teammate Keegan Davidson later pushed it to 20 on a foul line jumper that put him over 1,000 points for his career, ending any hopes of a comeback.
“At first when the number came out we were off,” McBride said of Davidson’s 1,000 points. “We thought it was three games ago then we do the math and to give you a testament to Keegan and even his father, even if it was home they said, ‘Don’t you dare stop the game. You can’t preach team, team, team and stop the game to celebrate someone.’ It happened down here, we’ll celebrate it next year.”
Talan Muscari, who scored 18 points against Logan in last year’s quarterfinal matchup turned in another efficient showing, going 6-of-10 from the field for 14 points.
He and Johnson were joined in double figures by Fox (10) and Davidson (11).
Lucas Lambert and Bentley Williamson led Logan with 16 points each.
Up next for the Warriors is their third straight matchup against a team they’ll play for the third time this season. East took a 62-56 win over the Beavers in New Richmond in early January before bombarding them 69-59 at Bluefield in a game where the Warriors made eight 3s in the first half and led comfortably all game.
“It’s a lot like today in that the margin for error is very slim,” McBride said. “(Bluefield assistant) Jody Fuller and (head coach) Tony (Webster) can put in some new sets but your personnel – we do a scouting report but at this point it’s like we dap those guys up and we know them. It’s going to be a razor-thin margin. Tony Webster has them playing really good basketball. We played them two weeks ago.
“I’m not going to say we wish we played somebody else but I feel confident in the bunch we have that we can take a scouting report to the floor. I know these guys will be confident in it. It’s a region 3 battle and I’m really proud of the fact Region 3 represents on the boys and the girls side with (James Monroe girls basketball coach) Shari (Helvey) and (Wyoming East girls basketball coach) Ryan (Davidson). It kind of shows what southern West Virginia is all about.”
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