Bluefield – Bluefield spun the pick-your-poison roulette of Wyoming East and landed on Broc Johnson.
After watching all-stater Keegan Davidson score 26 on them in January, the Beavers yielded 26 points to Johnson Thursday as the No. 2-ranked Warriors of East secured a 69-59 victory at No. 4 Bluefield Thursday.
Johnson was just one of four lethal doses administered to the Beavers as Talan Muscari (15), Davidson (14) and Braxton Morgan (10) all joined him in double figures.
Together they largely ignited an East offense that shot 47 percent from the floor (25-for-53) on the night and over 50 percent (8-for-15) from beyond the arc in the first half alone.
“We have talked all week and we kind of shifted our focus toward what we want to be in March and we had a discussion about some things we need to do offensively,” East head coach Kent McBride said. “We went back and looked at old tape from state tournament runs in years past and what you have to do to win up there and I thought we did a wonderful job of in the first half of taking what we talked about and applying it and it showed up in the shooting percentage.”
For East there was largely one threat to deal with in Bluefield all-stater Jase Smith who netted 31 points on 10-of-19 shooting. Unfortunately for the Beavers only one other scored in double figures – Davion Hickman who netted 10.
“They just shot the ball real well,” Bluefield head coach Tony Webster said. “I didn’t think (East) shot the ball as well in the second half as they did the first half but we dug us a hole again. We were down 16 again. We gave up a wide-open 3 at the end of the second quarter to a guy. I think our basketball knowledge – some of our young ones don’t understand what we’re trying to do right now which is okay. They’ve got a couple more years but still our seniors have to step up and help Jase score.
“We have to find somebody else – I think somebody had 10 but other than that nobody else is contributing on the offensive end and you just can’t ask Jase to score 30-35 points every night and beat good teams.”
For Bluefield the second quarter again proved problematic. After the Beavers were outscored 29-9 in the second frame last week at James Monroe and suffered a similar fate against Tug Valley on Friday, they watched East outscore them 18-8 en route to a 41-25 halftime lead.
“Those second quarters have been bothering us,” Webster said. “It got us against Tug Valley the other night. We got down 16. It’s just been tough to play four quarters and we have not had our five kids all play good. Our pregame speech, I’m just going to tell you. we’ve got to get somebody else to score. We can’t ask Jase to score 30 every night against really good teams. He’s playing a lot of minutes, he’s playing hard and doing all he can do to keep us in games but I’m ready for some of these other seniors to step it up.”
The offense was flowing early for both teams with Johnson and Ricky Dunford trading layups before Smith and Davidson traded 3s. East took the lead for good when Johnson netted a 3 and followed with a tough layup on the other end.
A layup from Davidson and another Morgan 3 put East ahead 23-17 after a quarter.
Then the tidal wave hit.
Johnson kicked it off with a 3, followed by another from Muscari. Muscari was true again from deep later in the frame, pushing the lead to 38-23 with a layup for good measure. Smith stopped the bleeding with a 2-pointer but Johnson put the finishing touches on the frame with a 27-foot 3-pointer ahead of the buzzer.
The run came with East all-state center Konnor Fox on the bench most of the night in foul trouble while Bluefield guard Amari Helm suffered from the same issue.
Headed towards blowout territory, Bluefield rerouted its path, cutting the deficit to 10 out of the half to force an East timeout.
“We called timeout and said that, we have words and cues that we talk about,” Kent McBride said. “We knew Bluefield was going to make a run. I thought a lot of our offense – we got a little out of character to start the half and they got a little into our shorts and they dictated it there for awhile then we settled down.”
The Beavers repeatedly chipped away, getting to within seven points twice but no closer. The cherry on top came when Johnson scored his final two points with a one-handed dunk.
“I think what you’re seeing at the beginning of the year – we can call it what it is – with all the talent influx that we had an where we were it took us awhile to find ourselves and find a comfort zone with each other. Everyone is settling into that spot of how they’re being used and how they fit with each other Broc’s one that you see if you look at his numbers the last five or six games, we looked at it and he’s 48 percent from 3 and the last five he’s averaging 19 and 8 and he’s continuing that upward trend. Broc Johnson can put that orange thing through the hole a lot like Jase Smith can and our guys are comfortable.”
East will close its regular season on Saturday when it hosts Logan while Bluefield will host Liberty on Friday for senior night.
Wyoming East
Keegan Davidson 14, Talan Muscari 15, Broc Johnson 26, Braxton Morgan 10, Konnor Fox 1, Braedy Johnston 3
Bluefield
Davion Hickman 10, Amari Helm 5, Ricky Dunford 4, Jase Smith 31, Grayson Parris 6, Devon Totten 2, Eli Riffe 1
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