Beckley – In a battle of historical basketball powers, the Wyoming County kids made a statement.
Wyoming East roared out to a 19-5 first quarter lead and never relinquished control in a 71-49 toppling of Beckley in the Little General Battle for the Armory Monday evening in Beckley.
The win sends East to the championship game where it will face Shady Spring on Tuesday at 8 p.m. Beckley will face James Monroe.
East’s 6-foot-7 center Konnor Fox dominated the Flying Eagles, tallying 21 points and grabbing 18 rebounds in the win.
“Konnor was a man tonight,” East head coach Kent McBride said. “The thing I was proud about was he kept his demeanor and focus for the most part and when he does that he’s really good. If he steps his brain outside the line, it affects his energy and he responded well. The last game we played he had bad energy and bad activity. So when he’s active and flying down there around the rim, good luck. He’s really hard to handle.”
The fast start was more than enough for East to live comfortably with no other Flying Eagle able to match the output of Preston Clary who netted a game-high 24 points on 10 of 17 shooting. The next closest scorer was Lucas Raney with eight.
East meanwhile placed Keegan Davidson (15), Talan Muscari (12) and Broc Johnson (14) in double figures alongside Fox.
They did so efficiently with all four shooting 50 percent or better from the floor. It spoke to their unselfishness as well as 21 of the Warriors’ 29 field goal were assisted on.
“We had 21 assists and the message to them after the game was that’s the most complete game we’ve played,” McBride said. “It’s nothing more than – there was a lot of trust on the court tonight. There were mistakes made but they corrected them on the court without the coaches. When the ball moves like that, we share it like that and you pileup 21 assists you make offense pretty easy.”
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