Photo by Heather Belcher/WVSSAC
Charleston – No. 2 North Marion was out-rebounded 29-20 in its quarterfinal matchup against No. 7 Shady Spring but grabbed the one that mattered.
Maddox Batson’s tip-in off a Conner Balwanz miss with 2.4 seconds left decided the game as the Huskies edged No. 7 Shady Spring in the Class AAA quarterfinals Wednesday afternoon in the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
The win sends the Huskies to the Class AAA semis where they’ll face No. 3 Bridgeport on Friday at 7:15.
The points capped the biggest quarter of the game for Batson who netted all seven of his in the final frame.
“I just play my role, do what I needed to do and it just happens like that,” Batson said. “I always work on rebounding. What I always do is rebounding for us and everyone does their role. It also goes.
“It was just a really good bounce on the rebound,” Batson later said. “I got a lucky tip on it and it went in.”
For the Tigers the loss comes after leading by as many as 12 points with 11 minutes to play but a defensive switch to start the fourth quarter keyed a 9-0 run that saw the Huskies erase the eight-point deficit they started the frame in.
“They did a good job at changing up their pressure,” Shady Spring head coach Ronnie Olson said. “I thought we did a good job with their run-and-jump, their man pressure – they went to a zone press there and it gave us a little fit and we turned the ball over. Nothing we haven’t seen before.
“That was a big spurt in the game. One it lost us the game. You can’t have live-ball turnovers and we had them and it led to their points. We had 10 turnovers and I think three in the first half against a team that predominantly presses and run-and-jumps. I thought we did a heck of job vs. their pressure. Just that little spurt there where we couldn’t get the ball up the floor.”
The zone pressure proved to be the deciding factor in what was an incredible efficient effort for the Tiger offense. They shot 58 percent (22-for-28) from the field and 80 percent on volume (16-for-20) from the free throw line and only turned the ball over 10 times.
The issue was North Marion scored 16 points off those 10 turnovers while North Marion gave the ball away just three times.
“I think not only did we turn them over but we only had three,” North Marion head coach Steve Harbert said. “These two guys handle the ball 90 percent of the time. For us to only have three turnovers is a credit to what they do. As far as us capitalizing on turnovers, they did a good job is trying to control the pace. We wanted to play at a different tempo and finally we were able to get some turnovers.
“It’s turnovers and missed shots we can get run-outs on to help with our pace. Finally we were able to do that. I thought we were in attack mode the whole time but (Shady) just did such a good job of gapping everything and they made every shot tough at the rim. So if you turn people over or get easy run-outs now you’re in space and I think we’re petty good in space.”
Shady which still had 2.4 seconds left to tie or win the game, heaved the ball down court on the in-bounds following Batson’s shot but it was deflected out of bounds by a North Marion player, giving the Tigers possession under their own basket with 2.2 seconds to play.
A fading 3-pointer from Coby Dillon in the left corner hit the left side of the rim as the horn sounded.
“We called three different plays in a matter of five seconds but Coby said, ‘Let me shoot the 3 and win the game,’ and I thought it was fitting,” Olson said. “We had another play call to tie the game but for a kid that’s dominated the game like that – he had 22 points – he got a pretty good look at it. I know he says, ‘My fault, gotta make that’ but that’s all you can do. We had an open look at it to win the game and the feeling would’ve been flip-flopped.”
The dramatics capped a game that wasn’t full of them for much of the day. Shady took a 9-3 lead early behind a 3 from Dillon and led 36-26 at the half. The Tigers netted their biggest lead at 12 twice on buckets from Dillon but a trio of 3s from Jacob Kusich and Eli Ramsey helped the Huskies try the deficit to eight after three.
Batson kicked off the fourth with another trey, the fourth off the half for the Huskies, kicking off the momentous 9-0 run that gave them their first lead of the game.
Dillon answered with a 3 but North Marion was quick on the response, retaking the lead and going ahead 62-59 on a Conner Balwanz 3.
Down 64-61 with under 30 seconds to play, Shady’s Gabe Short sidestepped an airborne defender and knocked down the tying three that set top the final sequence.
“I thought our guys did a heckuva job executing the gameplan, we just came up a little short,” Olson said. “But they hit some big shots there and that’s what good teams do. Gabe hit a big shot – that’s what good players do.
“Coby hit some, Jace (Lilly) hit some, Cutter (Boggs), Jace Bailey. That’s what good teams do. It was a heck of a game. Felt like state championship game. It was a good game. We’ll be back. We’ve got everybody back minus special Coby. It’s a great learning experience for my young guys as well.”
Short (14) and Lilly (13) joined Dillon in double figures while Ramsey paced North with 19 points.
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