Charleston – On a day where lowers seeds Tucker County and Wayne pulled off upset victories and two-time defending state champion Tug Valley rallied from a double digit deficit to win, top-seeded Greater Beckley was hoping to avoid an upset.
The Crusaders did so, but not without a scare.
Sophomore Javonte Spencer stole an inbounds pass with 10 seconds to go, netting a pair of free throws after a foul to preserve a 52-46 victory over No. 8 Webster County Tuesday evening in the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center.
Greater Beckley now advances to the Class A semifinal for the third time in five seasons where it will face East Hardy on Thursday at 7:15 p.m.
The win caps a season sweep of the Highlanders for Greater Beckley with Tuesday’s matchup the closest amongst the three.
“We’d been with Greater Beckley twice this year before down here,” Webster County head coach Brett Morris said. “It didn’t go very well for us either time. When we got down we enjoyed the whole thing. We put ourselves in an opportunity where I think most of the people in here didn’t think we’d be.”
“Webster came to play and is very well-coached,” Greater Beckley head coach Justin Arvon said. “They threw the triangle-and-two at us. As a coaching staff we did not prepare our team well enough and not adjust well enough until the fourth quarter for that. We’ll be ready for that going forward but to their credit they never stopped against adversity tonight. Take the seeds away in single-A this year. You’ve already had upsets throughout.”
In a game where the margins proved thin the Crusaders won the turnover battle 14-7, netting 18 of their 52 points off of turnovers. That advantage helped them rebound from a rocky start that saw them fall into a 9-3 hole but crawl out of it to knot the game at 9-9.
“Maybe I’m a very bad coach, maybe I should’ve taken a timeout but it worked out this time,” Arvon said. “I say I do trust our team and our guys that are on the floor, maybe to a fault at times. I don’t like taking timeouts because if they’re unable to bounce back on the floor there’s very little we’re going to do in a timeout.
“We’re still going to have to go back out there and bounce back. They get down and I don’t see quit in them. They’re very-well conditioned and they’re raring to go 100 percent of the time so I let them go. That may end up being to our detriment at times but they showed what they got to ight when we went dow and I’m proud of them.”
After tying the game at 2-2 on a Javonte Spencer layup, the Crusaders watched Webster’s Kasey Farmer get loose for four straight, dropping into the 9-3 hole. Spencer answered with six straight to tie the game at nine, scoring 10 of his game-high 23 points in the opening quarter alone.
“I saw a lot of mismatches with speed,” Spencer said. “(I was) trying to get the big man outside on the perimeter and just try to get by him and look for open teammates if they cut over.”
The rally turned into an 11-0 run and 14-2 run into the second quarter but an 8-1 response put the Highlanders back ahead with the team exchanging the lead once more in the half before heading into the break tied at 22.
That trend carried through the third quarter with neither team leading by more than three points. The fourth told a different story with Greater Beckley creating some breathing room on buckets from Javonte and longer brother Jabari but a 3-pointer from Spencer Baird pulled the Highlanders back within two points with just over two minutes to play.
The Crusaders used free throws to push the advantage back to six before a Ryder Wright floater made it a 50-46 with 12 seconds to play. An offensive foul call gave the ball back to Webster before Javonte stole the inbounds pass, drew the foul and knocked down the free throws to cement the victory.
“I just saw a crucial situation,” Spencer said. “We needed the ball and I just went and got it. That’s really it.”
Freshman Iziah Gordon joined Spencer in double figures with 17 points while Wright led Webster with 13 points.
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